Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late
Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late
Brad Yung
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softcover 978-1-988915-11-1
ON SALE
humour/parenting/creative nonfiction
214 PP · 5½×8½"
$16.95 USD · $19.95 CAD
What if you could live your life over, making all the right decisions and avoiding all the mistakes? You can, vicariously through your children, but is that a good idea?
101 standalone stories about parenting or being parented — from bullying to discipline, grandmothers to ice cream, old friends to first love — each culminate in a lesson that messed the author up, so he’s not going to teach them to his kids until it’s too late.
Brad Yung mines his past and speculates on his children’s futures, alternately reaching out and lashing out. Added all together, several storylines emerge: an embattled mother-son relationship, the early death of his father, a crumbling marriage, a fractured take on his Chinese heritage, and his love for his kids.
Understatedly funny, wistfully longing while steeped in regret, poignant if tragic, yet ultimately hopeful, uplifting, and insightful, Lessons I’m Going To Teach My Kids Too Late almost succeeds in not being a self-help parenting book, but not for lack of trying.
Review quotes:
“All at once sardonic, bitter, smart, tender, and heartbreaking… Often entertaining and wisdom-filled… readers will appreciate the caustic wit that makes this book impossible to put down.”
— Library Journal
“…poignant, thoughtful, frequently funny, and literal proof that it’s never too late to teach anyone about everything.”
— Robin Esrock, author of The Great Global Bucket List
“As a useful guidebook, Lessons falls somewhere between Spock, Dr. Spock and Dr.Seuss for young 21st Century families.”
— Columbia Journal
“You’ll pop back the small pieces of advice like popcorn and only gradually register the tangy death and regret that flavour it.”
— Jim Munroe, author of Sword of My Mouth