Parents and Professionals – Empower Children with This Choose-Your-Own-Ending Book!
No matter how loving their family, all kids need some help in maneuvering the ups and downs that come with divorce and remarriage. . .
“Just when you think you’re used to that sad and scary feeling that sometimes comes when you think about your mom and dad being divorced, your dad throws you a new thing to get used to . . .”
In My Dad Is Getting Married Again, Melissa’s dad is remarrying and she is confused by her wide variety of thoughts and feelings. Should she run away or talk things out with her dad? Should she express her anger by throwing things and breaking them or by pounding her fists into her pillow? Throughout the story, the reader is asked to take the place of Melissa and to choose the way she should react by turning to different pages of the book.
For example, when Melissa is upset and hiding at a neighbor’s, her dad comes up and holds out his hand:
“Come on,” he says. “Do you want to go home and try to work this out?”
If you say, “No! I don’t want to!” turn to page 16.
If you agree and follow him back home, turn to page 24.
This poignant and insightful book about the fears, uncertainties, and even unexpected pleasures of gaining a step-parent deals with real feelings that children have in this often frightening and lonely situation, asking such questions as, “Why couldn’t Dad marry Mom again instead?” and “Will he stop loving me, too?”
Children dealing with this life passage will learn they have a right to all of their feelings but what they choose to do with them will create different consequences as well as different endings to this story. Readers understand they are not alone and feel supported as they learn constructive ways to deal with their feelings and the changes in their lives.
(Out of print; limited availability.)
