{"product_id":"0374223068-no_biking_in_the_house_without_a_helmet","title":"No Biking in the House Without a Helmet","description":"\n\n\u003cp\u003eDispatches from the new front lines of parenthood\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen the two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene confided to friends that she and her husband planned to adopt a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria to add to their four children at home, the news threatened to place her, she writes, \"among the greats: the Kennedys, the McCaughey septuplets, the von Trapp family singers, and perhaps even Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, gave birth to sixty-nine children in eighteenth-century Russia.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eGreene is best known for her books on the civil rights movement and the African HIV\/AIDS pandemic. She's been praised for her \"historian's urge for accuracy,\" her \"sociologist's sense of social nuance,\" and her \"writerly passion for the beauty of language.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut Melissa and her husband have also pursued a more private vocation: parenthood. \"We so loved raising our four children by birth, we didn't want to stop. When the clock started to run down on the home team, we brought in ringers.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen the number of children hit nine, Greene took a break from reporting. She trained her journalist's eye upon events at home. Fisseha was riding a bike down the basement stairs; out on the porch, a squirrel was sitting on Jesse's head; vulgar posters had erupted on bedroom walls; the insult niftam (the Amharic word for \"snot\") had led to fistfights; and four non-native-English-speaking teenage boys were researching, on Mom's computer, the subject of \"saxing.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"At first I thought one of our trombone players was considering a change of instrument,\" writes Greene. \"Then I remembered: they can't spell.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eUsing the tools of her trade, she uncovered the true subject of the \"saxing\" investigation, inspiring the chapter \"Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, but Couldn't Spell.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eA celebration of parenthood; an ingathering of children, through birth and out of loss and bereavement; a relishing of moments hilarious and enlightening--\u003ci\u003eNo Biking in the House Without a Helmet\u003c\/i\u003e is a loving portrait of a unique twenty first-century family as it wobbles between disaster and joy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eCategories:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul class=\"category-tree\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBiographies \u0026amp; Memoirs\u003cul class=\"category-tree\"\u003e\u003cli class=\"category-tree\"\u003eMemoirs\u003c\/li\u003e\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n","brand":"Sarah Crichton Books","offers":[{"title":"Used - Acceptable","offer_id":48168037941438,"sku":"0374223068-5","price":13.47,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0640\/9689\/5166\/files\/81zbHtFwGJL.jpg?v=1784205370","url":"https:\/\/shop.sustainablebooks.com\/products\/0374223068-no_biking_in_the_house_without_a_helmet","provider":"Sustainable Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}