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How to Be a Family
How to Be a Family: How I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together | Dan Kois
What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in search of a new way to be together? Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his wife and daughters on a journey around the world to change their lives together. Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters- could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together? In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny book, the fractious, loving Kois family goes in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble. HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-hike through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go? A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.
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BookishTrish
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Having been working from home since March while homeschooling 3 kids (2 of whom are school resistant) I‘ve been thinking a lot about how we can leverage our togetherness into being a better family. This book has been a heartwarming companion on this internal journey. I appreciate how Dan tries to understand and acknowledge his privilege and the love he so clearly has for his family.

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Sills
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I appreciate a good nonfiction book. This was entertaining, revealing, and artfully written. Their journey took them to New Zealand, Denmark, Costa Rica, and HAYS, KANSAS. They lived in each location for three months and chose them strategically to incorporate specific family values in each location. You won't be disappointed. @tpixie @JoanehSmith

Grrlbrarian Well I‘m sure New Zealand had nothing on Hays 😂 5y
Sills @Grrlbrarian I know you'd be surprised😜 5y
tpixie @Sills how interesting!! Sydney knew a family, who‘s Dad, and kids travel the world for one year. 5y
Nute Though I‘m not one moving around a lot, I could definitely be intrigued by the prospect of gaining character insight just by living in a particular place for exposure to cultural values. 4y
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Sharpeipup
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Rainy day pit stop for a warm drink & a few chapters.
#nonfiction #coffeshopreading

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JacintaMCarter
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#2019Book80
I'm always up for a good travel memoir, a book about family drama, and non-fiction about cultures I'm unfamiliar with. Lucky for me, this book rolls all of those things into one. I was, of course, partial toward the Hays section because I know many of the people Kois wrote about, but the chapters about New Zealand were my absolute favorite.

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auntie_jenn
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i loved this family memoir that tells how they lived in four different countries to experience different cultures. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

charl08 Sounds intriguing! 5y
7 likes3 stack adds1 comment
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AutumnRLS
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Got my hands on this ARC and am super excited. Love the podcast Mom and Dad are Fighting and Dan Kois. Glad he's back after taking a hiatus to write this book.

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AutumnRLS
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Memoir. CT used book finds.