New Releases by Jan L. Waldron

Too scared to go trick-or-treating, John Pig stays home on Halloween and has an unplanned party with some unexpected, monstrous guests.

A group of pigs discover the meaning of Christmas.

Giving Away Simone is Jan Waldron's account of her compelling, turbulent, and maddeningly original relationship with the daughter she gave away. Jan's baby, Simone, was the fifth generation of women in her family to be abandoned by their mothers. Determined to fight this "undertow of conditioned exiting, an affliction of easy farewell," Jan reunited with her daughter, now renamed Rebecca, when Rebecca was eleven. They spent the next thirteen years trying to come to terms with each other and figure out what kind of roles they were to play in each others' lives. For birthmothers, there are no simple equations of loss and gain. Each adoption is its own unique universe of complexities and ambiguities. But often the most personal is also the most universal, and there are truths to be found in every story. This beautifully rendered, intensely personal memoir gives essential shading to choices usually reduced to black and white. Waldron does not dispense advice; she probes the emotional fallout, on both sides of adoption, an area in which sedated platitudes have presided for far too long. "

Part memoir, part social commentary, Jan Waldron's "In the Country of Men is a thoughtful and provocative exploration of the meaning of gender, male-female relationships, and manhood. Jan's powerful but warm voice both provokes and seduces as she exposes the folly of gender shtick while carefully unraveling the intricate stitching of her life vis-a-vis the men who contributed to her definition of manhood: her father, her brother, her lovers, her sons. Waldron begins with memories of her father, a boy who never really grew up, and her brother, a boy who had to grow up too fast. We experience the high drama of her first kiss, and the deep disappointment of her relationship with the father of her sons, who left the family when their two boys were four and five. She is frustrated with men and the trappings of manhood but has finally found a happy, lasting relationship with a man, and in raising her sons, she has found hope and a vision for the future of gender relations. Her boys, now sitting on the cusp of manhood, are the stars of this book. "In the Country of Men is a book of experiences, insights, and impressions recalled and written with tenderness, humor, and great empathy for males. It is not a manifesto of absolutes or a male-bashing gripe; it is not aligned with a movement nor is it about men compared to women. Waldron is just as claustrophobic at a feminist rally as she is at a rowdy men's sports bar, and teenage boy humor cracks her up. She speaks boldly and authoritatively to both men and women alike because, as she sees it, the social imperative is for gender to take its place in the parentheses while freeing us all to find our humanity