
"The dad's eye view is a little above and behind the kids': above, so you can scan the horizon for danger and excitement; behind, because adventures are best led by the kids." So says writer and amateur photographer Michael Hartford, who has followed his twin boys and their mother up historic water towers, down secret streets, and through Twin Cities landmarks, both lauded and little-known, with vintage camera in hand. over the years, the destinations have changed, from zoos to markets to museums, but the point has remained the same: to play and learn and explore together.
In Dad's Eye View, Hartford describes fifty-two of his family's favorite Twin Cities spots--one for each week of the year--and dares other dads (and moms) to explore them with gusto. Shoot sparks at the Bakken Museum, track foxes along the Mississippi River gorge, climb ropes at French Regional Park, and measure your success not by the time it takes you to get in and out but by the number of questions your kids ask: How many books are in this library? Why were mills built here? Seek out adventure and savor it, with Dad's Eye View along for inspiration.


- Features many photographs of coaches in actions paired with the brightly colored quotes to help dads keep their head in the game.
- Includes a foreword written by Hall of Fame Quarterback Steve Young where he talks about his own family and shares real-life experiences.
- The compact 6 x 8 inch size is great for keeping on a coffee table or a bedside table for daily reminders.

Winner of the 2016 Thurber Prize
The riotous, tender story of a bookish Mississippi boy and his flawed, Bunyanesque father, told with the comic verve of David Sedaris and the deft satire of Mark Twain or Roy Blount, Jr.
Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, but he grew up in Mississippi, among pious, Bible-reading women and men who either shot things or got women pregnant. At the center of his world was his larger-than-life father--a hunter, a fighter, a football coach, "a man better suited to living in a remote frontier wilderness of the nineteenth century than contemporary America, with all its progressive ideas, and paved roads, and lack of armed duels. He was a great man, and he taught me many things: How to fight, how to work, how to cheat, how to pray to Jesus about it, how to kill things with guns and knives and, if necessary, with hammers."
Harrison, with his love of books and excessive interest in hugging, couldn't have been less like Pop, and when it became clear that he was not able to kill anything very well or otherwise make his father happy, he resolved to become everything his father was not: an actor, a Presbyterian, and a doctor of philosophy. But when it was time to settle down and start a family of his own, Harrison started to view his father in a new light, and realized--for better and for worse--how much of his old man he'd absorbed.
Sly, heartfelt, and tirelessly hilarious, The World's Largest Man is an unforgettable memoir--the story of a boy's struggle to reconcile himself with an impossibly outsized role model, a grown man's reckoning with the father it took him a lifetime to understand.


2017 Finalist - Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Creative Book Award
2017 Finalist - Evans Biography and Handcart Award Combining natural history, humor, and personal narrative, Raising Wild is an intimate exploration of Nevada's Great Basin Desert, the wild and extreme land of high desert caliche and juniper, of pronghorn antelope and mountain lions, where wildfires and snowstorms threaten in equal measure. Michael Branch "earned his whiskers" in the Great Basin Desert of northwestern Nevada, in the wild and extreme landscape where he lives off the grid with his wife and two curious little girls. Shifting between pastoral passages on the beauty found in the desert and humorous tales of the humility of being a father, Raising Wild offers an intimate portrait of a landscape where mountain lions and ground squirrels can threaten in equal measure. With Branch's distinct lyricism and wit, this exceedingly barren landscape becomes a place resonant with the rattle of snakes, the plod of pronghorn antelope, and the rustle of juniper trees, a place that is teeming with energy, surprise, and an endless web of connections. Part memoir, part homage to an environment all-to-often brushed aside as inhospitable, Raising Wild offers an intergenerational approach to nature, family, and the forgotten language of wildness.


Get the baby gates, lock the cupboards, and load up Elmo's Song, toddlers are on the loose. The Toddler Survival Guide is here to get you to the other side.
Toddlers and zombies both communicate mainly through groans, clumsily trail after you everywhere you go (especially into the bathroom in the toddler's case), and--upon entering your life--leave you frazzled, on edge, and deeply sleep deprived.
The Toddler Survival Guide is a hilarious parody of Max Brooks's The Zombie Survival Guide (and survival guides in general) that will leave parents laughing out loud even as it provides practical advice on how they can make it to the other side of toddlerhood intact. Written by parents who have studied toddlers up-close in their natural habitat, the book will cover survival skills including how you can outfit your home to outlast a toddler occupation (baby gate, cabinet locks, wine), how you can subdue an angry toddler ("Elmo's Song," mac and cheese, smartphone) and even how you can safely venture out in public together without your toddler--or you--bursting into tears.
Chapters include: Preparing the Home for a Toddler Invasion, Communicating with Your Toddler, Feeding a Toddler, Socializing Your Toddler, Grooming Your Toddler, Venturing into Public with a Toddler, Documenting Your Life with a Toddler, Vacationing with a Toddler, Toddler Entertainment and Birthdays, Surviving Bedtime and Potty Training, Technology and the Toddler, and Parental Self-Preservation.

Tens of thousands of moms who struggle with anger have found hope, laughter, understanding, and biblical counsel in She's Gonna Blow With over 100,000 in print, this bestseller now has a fresh cover and a new practical helps section with more resources and step-by-step advice.
Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages of Children, tells readers that Julie Ann Barnhill has learned from her journey, and so will you...You'll identify with Julie's open, honest approach.
Straightforward and easy-to-read, She's Gonna Blow is for every mom seeking here-and-now hope and help to...
- find healthier ways of expressing anger
- let go of control issues and be more positive
- draw closer to the God who created moms and mothering

Widely considered the leading book involving nutrition and feeding infants and children, this revised edition offers practical advice that takes into account the most recent research into such topics as: emotional, cultural, and genetic aspects of eating; proper diet during pregnancy; breast-feeding versus; bottle-feeding; introducing solid food to an infant's diet; feeding the preschooler; and avoiding mealtime battles. An appendix looks at a wide range of disorders including allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity, and how to teach a child who is reluctant to eat. The author also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of giving young children vitamins.