Melanie, Annie, and Steven Ford all became part of one family when Melanie and Steven's father married Annie's mother. At the time of the marriage, the three children were in elementary and middle school. Later a new baby joined the blended family. Their story unfolds as the children talk to each other in an interview format, creating a casual, conversational feel. Discusses the feelings they experienced and problems they faced, offers advice and reassurance, and reassures readers that they can feel better by explaining how the children of this blended family learned to cope. Melanie, Annie,...

In the autumn of 1973, a freshman "revolutionary" arrived on a college campus, eager to finally engage in a war that he had only watched from the sidelines. But the flames of protest were guttering out and a new world was already taking shape. The revolutionaries he had so admired were either dead or moving on. The Vietnam War was winding to an inglorious close and even Richard Nixon was teetering on the edge of resignation. An Acquired Taste is the tale of young man adrift, a person who arrives far too late to the party and finds himself suddenly among strangers. It is a story of existential...