{"product_id":"making-it-home-isbn-9780593546086","title":"Making It Home","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"This is a story about a team that becomes a family and a family that becomes a team. . . a wonderful book .\" -- Cal Ripken, Jr.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A MUST READ!\"--USA TODAY (\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2023)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eAn achingly heartfelt and surprisingly funny memoir about family, grief, and moving forward.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e When her brother dies from cancer, and then her mother just four months later, Teresa Strasser has no one to mourn with but her irresponsible, cantankerous, trailerpark-dwelling father. He claims not to remember her chaotic childhood, but he’s a devoted grandpa, so as her son embarks on his first season pitching in Little League, Teresa and Nelson form a grief group of two in beach chairs lined up behind the first base line.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e There are no therapeutically trained facilitators and no rules other than those dictated by the Little League of America, and the human heart. For Teresa and her father, the stages of grief are the draft, the regular season, and the playoffs. One season of baseball becomes the framework for a memoir about family, loss, and the fundamentals of baseball and life. They cheer, talk smack about other teams, scream at each other in the parking lot, and care\u003ci\u003e way too much \u003c\/i\u003eabout Little League.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMaking It Home\u003c\/i\u003e is a bracingly honest journey through grief, self-doubt, and anxiety armed with humor and optimism. After all, America’s pastime may be just a game, but it always leaves room for redemption, even at the bottom of the lineup.\u003cb\u003e“A MUST READ!”\u003c\/b\u003e -- \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It’s a \u003cb\u003eperfect \u003c\/b\u003ebook for fans of baseball, and also wonderful for those who aren’t.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e Good Housekeeping\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Baseball has always been a way for people to come together.  In \u003ci\u003eMaking It Home\u003c\/i\u003e Teresa and her father used baseball to come together and work through some of the most difficult circumstances we can imagine. \u003cb\u003e This is a story about a team that becomes a family and a family that becomes a team.\u003c\/b\u003e It is a wonderful book that powerfully captures how we work through life’s challenges with baseball as a backdrop.” – \u003cb\u003eCal Ripken, Jr.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[D]elightful. . .excellent, beautiful. . . .You’re gonna love this book.” — Mike Rowe, bestselling author, podcaster, host of \u003ci\u003eDirty Jobs\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Strasser \u003cb\u003eknocks it out of the park\u003c\/b\u003e,”— \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMoving, funny, sad, hopeful, it will strike a chord with anyone who is grieving, anyone with a child playing sports, anyone who has ever obsessed over something as a means of coping — pretty much everyone, really.” --\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Arizona Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Strasser writes in a voice that seems as if she’s telling you the story right next to you; a story about swings and misses, errors and strikeouts and growing up… and that’s just in the bleachers. It is ultimately \u003cb\u003ea reminder that being on a team - on the field or at home - especially through the hard times, makes life better; the wins sweeter and the losses softer. That is the magic of baseball. That is the magic of this book.\u003c\/b\u003e”--\u003cb\u003eDavid Mickey Evans, writer\/director of \u003ci\u003eSandlot\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"A complex and beautiful ride through grief, baseball, being a daughter and being a mother.... Teresa \u003cb\u003ehas the ability to lift you up, make you laugh and rip your heart out\u003c\/b\u003e within the same paragraph. \u003ci\u003eMaking it Home\u003c\/i\u003e is about so much more than grief and baseball, it’s also about love, parenting, acceptance and the power of forgiveness. It’s like reading great art –it’s \u003cb\u003egripping, poetic, powerful, magical, at times funny and at times heartbreaking. \u003c\/b\u003eI feel forever changed having experienced it.\"-- \u003cb\u003eNew York Times bestselling author Stefanie Wilder-Taylor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eI loved this book.\u003c\/b\u003e It is certainly not about any specific stages of grief; nor is it prescriptions for ‘getting over it.’ \u003cb\u003eThis is a story about learning to lose with patience and self-compassion \u003c\/b\u003e— in baseball and in life.”\u003cb\u003e — Dr. Drew Pinsky, physician and New York Times bestselling author\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“We know baseball and the movies have had a long love affair. This story taught me that baseball and grief are having a relationship of their own. \u003cb\u003eThis memoir — a tale of a broken and glued-together American family — has the thrilling peaks and crushing valleys of the seventh game of a World Series.\u003c\/b\u003e And with every page, you can see the movie unfold in your imagination. It’ll be a good picture, too, though you’ll always tell your friends, \"'Sure, but the book was better.’” --\u003cb\u003eBen Mankiewicz, Turner Classic Movies\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “As a sports parent, I know the power of the connection sports can bring (and the agony of twelve-hour volleyball tournaments farther away than any outlet mall you've ever been to). Teresa captures this beautifully. \u003cb\u003eThis book may be about Little League, but Teresa is a Major League talent\u003c\/b\u003e.” --\u003cb\u003eAdam Carolla, New York Times Bestselling author and podcaster\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“A beautifully crafted story that, I promise you, you have not read anywhere before. Is it heartbreaking? Yes. Will it cause you to tear up? Possibly. But at the same time, it’s \u003cb\u003eundeniably funny, a bit scurrilous, disrespectful, and outrageous\u003c\/b\u003e. Did I mention funny? “\u003cb\u003e -- Cable Neuhaus, Columnist, \u003ci\u003eSaturday Evening Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eA beautiful poignant tale \u003c\/b\u003eof sport helping overcome grief. I suffered a pretty tough loss this year and this book was both difficult to read and \u003cb\u003eimmensely uplifting\u003c\/b\u003e as I mourned and remembered.\" -- \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAll Sports Book Reviews,\u003c\/b\u003e Favorite Books \u003c\/i\u003eof 2023  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Peppered with humor and searing insights!” --Metropolitan Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eTeresa Strasser\u003c\/b\u003e is an Emmy-winning writer (Comedy Central) and Emmy-nominated television host (TLC). She has been a contributor to the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times, USA Today, the Arizona Republic, The Jewish Journal, HuffPost,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Today Show\u003c\/i\u003e. Her first-person essays have garnered three Los Angeles Press Club Awards, including Columnist of the Year. She’s appeared on The View, CNN, Good Morning America, The Talk, and Dr. Phil. Radio and podcast audiences know her as Adam Carolla’s co-host. Her first memoir, \u003ci\u003eExploiting My Baby: Because It’s Exploiting Me\u003c\/i\u003e was a \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller and optioned by ABC.The old man picks up his pace, cycling shoes clipped into his pedals, flying down the sidewalk until he gets to the overpass just before Hayden Road.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He turns onto the Indian Bend Wash Path, a bike trail winding through a city park. It’s dark now, and he can barely see the palm trees and pagodas, the faded blue plastic dome-top trash cans. The parking lot behind the CVS, and the red and white lights of the Circle K, they stretch farther behind him now, just some dim lights down Thomas, across from a sleepy La Quinta Inn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe pedals as hard as he can, then lifts off the seat, coasting along the yellow painted stripe on the path, to the place where a bridge takes him over a creek bed, the bottom only stones and browning leaves and broken glass. Yellow letters painted across the path spell out “SLOW,” but he doesn’t heed the words as he heads into a sharp left turn at full speed. He’s taken this turn a hundred times before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It’s quiet now, deep in the park, just his heart beating and the babble of faraway city sounds. He lets out a tentative shriek. Nobody can hear him. He’s not bothering anybody, he figures. So, he opens his mouth wider, pushing out a fuller tone. Now he’s screaming, full out, into the dry desert wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He gets to an intersection, crosses the road into El Dorado Park, where the bike path picks up again, and he catches himself as he passes the shoddily manicured flowering bushes behind the Continental Villa apartments, NOW LEASING, and the neighborhood watch sign. He still yells, but he tamps down his volume until he’s back in the thick of the woods, whizzing by empty gazebos, picnic tables with benches attached, a volleyball net sagging over a rectangular patch of dirt and sand. Now when he screams, it’s from deeper down, with all the force in his bony old body.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoans from the vast maw of fatherly loss travel through the air, undulating vibrations of unspeakably shitty times, long lists of medications on dry-erase boards in hospital rooms, late-night trips to the pharmacy for pain pills and cans of Ensure, and worse, the happy times, when he was so stupid, he didn’t even know to take note of them, talking about the 49ers’ offensive line, eating burritos at the Taqueria on Mission Street, laughing so hard when his grown son pinned him, his big grown bear of a child, wrestling on the carpet in front of the couch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou don’t know when you’re done screaming about your dead son until you’re done. He lets out another wail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe passes the man-made fishing pond, ducks floating, asleep. The air is salty now, a brine that carries the sound, which is nothing more really than a disturbance of the particles in the air, a disturbance that sets off the transportation of energy from one place to another, moving through solid surfaces and water, the pond and the ducks, a transmission as invisible and mysterious to me as the whereabouts of my brother. It turns out, a cold night is a good time for a father to scream; sound waves are louder and travel farther when there’s a chill in the air. I looked it up, the physics of it, how the speed of sound isn’t a constant, how it changes depending on the environment. The cold slows the molecules, saps their energy, so they’re too still on an Arizona night in early spring to vibrate as much as they do in the warm light of day. The old man’s cries take longer to ripple out than they did in summer, but they travel farther in the cool air, through crisp, sparse leaves, bird nests, the fence along the edge of the bike trail; to the beings going about their business in cars, whooshing toward home, windows up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI only know about the screaming because he admitted it to me. I still don’t know why, except grief needs a witness, according to one of the grief books in a stack on my nightstand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sometimes, I just start screaming. I’m not bothering anybody. So, I just scream when I’m riding home,” he confessed sheepishly, between innings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What do you scream?” Do you scream the name of your dead son, or do you just kind of scat?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I don’t know,” he answered shyly, looking away at Camelback Mountain way beyond the outfield. “I just yell.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wanted to know more, but the game was starting, and I knew that was all I was going to get. If I wanted to talk loss with my dad, it would have to be about Little League baseball.","brand":"Berkley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301868851429,"sku":"NP9780593546086","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593546086.jpg?v=1767732168","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/making-it-home-isbn-9780593546086","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}