Given in memory of Arnaud S. "Mike" Michel in acknowledgement of his unwaivering commitment to his role as father by Patricia Bonilla Harrison.

“The lowdown on what it’s like to be raised by a legend. Frequently funny and consistently intimate. . . . A great read.” —BookPage “Those searching for a moving Father’s Day gift need look no further.” —Publishers Weekly Men like John Wayne and John Lennon, Nolan Ryan and Bruce Lee, Cesar Chavez, Christopher Reeve, and Miles Davis have touched the lives of millions. But at home, to their children, they were not their public personas. They were Dad. Maybe Davis didn’t leave the office at five o’clock to come home and play catch with his son Erin, but the man we see through Erin’s eyes is so alive, so real, so not the “king of cool” (he taught his son to box, made a killer pot of chili, watched MTV alongside him) that it brings us to a whole new appreciation for the artist. Each of these forty first-person narratives—intimate, heartfelt, unvarnished, surprising, and profoundly universal—shows us not only a very different view of a figure we thought we knew but also a wholly fresh and moving idea of what it means to be a father.

From car games to contests to secret handshakes, this book is full of fun things for girls to do with their dads. They can punch out the paper airplanes and helicopters. They can tear out and share the notes and gift coupons. They can test their knowledge of each other with checklists made for two. And they can get to know each other even better with games and activities that are sure to leave them laughing.

Describes the various activities of fathers at home and away.

Grieving Dads: To the Brink and Back is a collection of candid stories from grieving dads that were interviewed over a two year period. The book offers insight from fellow members of, in the haunting words of one dad, "this terrible, terrible club," which consists of men who have experienced the death of a child. This book is a collection of survival stories by men who have survived the worst possible loss and lived to tell the tale. They are real stories that pull no punches and are told with brutal honesty. Men that have shared their deepest and darkest moments. Moments that included thoughts of suicide, self-medication and homelessness. Some of these men have found their way back from the brink while others are still standing there, stuck in their pain. The core message of Grieving Dads is "you're not alone." It is a message that desperately needs to be delivered to grieving dads who often grieve in silence due to society's expectations. Grieving Dads: To the Brink and Back is a book that no grieving dad or anyone who cares for him should be without. As any grieving parent will tell you, there are no words to describe the hell one experiences after the death of a child. Many men have no clue how to deal with or understand the myriad emotional, mental, and physical responses experienced after the death of a child. Stories appearing in the book have been carefully selected to represent a cross-section of fathers, as well as a diverse portrayal of loss. This approach helps reflect the full spectrum of grief, from the early days of shock and trauma to the long view after living with loss for many years. Any bereaved father will find brotherhood in these pages, and will feel that someone understands them. While there is plenty of raw emotion in this book-the stories are not exercises in self-pity nor are they studies in grief. They are survival stories instead. Some are testimonies to hope. Some are gut-wrenching accounts of overwhelming despair. But all of them are real-life stories from real-life grieving dads, and they show that even if one reaches his physical and emotional bottom, it is possible (although not easy) to live through that pain and find one's way to the other side of grief. Most dads in this book found themselves in a state of physical, mental, and emotional collapse after the death of their child. As if the losses alone weren't enough to drive these men to the brink, most try to deal with their grief according to the conventional wisdom so many men are brought up with, which perversely, increases their suffering all the more. We all know the party line about how men are "supposed" to deal with loss or even disappointment: toughen up, get back to work, take it like a man, support your wife, don't talk about your emotions, don't lose control, and if you must cry-by all means do so in private.

In Essential Dads, sociologist Jennifer Randles shares the stories of more than 60 marginalized men as they sought to become more engaged parents through a government-supported “responsible” fatherhood program. Dads’ experiences serve as a unique window into long-standing controversies about the importance of fathering, its connection to inequality, and the state’s role in shaping men’s parenting. With a compassionate and hopeful voice, Randles proposes a more equitable political agenda for fatherhood, one that carefully considers the social and economic factors shaping men’s abilities to be involved in their children’s lives and the ideologies that rationalize the necessity of that involvement.