Growing up isn't easy. But in this collection of stories by John Owens, childhood is a hilarious, insightful flashback packed with joyfully offbeat characters and you-can't-make-this-up experiences. At the same time, the book explores the disturbing frailty of the American Dream and how it can devastate families.

Author of the critically-acclaimed bestseller "Confessions of a Bad Teacher," John takes readers to his own youth in suburban Long Island. With his quirky family and his own odd-ball fat-kid-ADHD personality, it is a world of eating raw Duncan Hines cake mixes and begrudgingly collecting pennies for UNICEF, as well as watered-down soup, hand-me-down square-dancing boots, pocket-sized false teeth, and, yes, chickens. Lots and lots of chickens.

John's youthful turn at poultry farming, along with other peculiar exploits both in and out of the backyard, taught the author many valuable life lessons, with which readers will readily identify.

Wrapped in all of these laugh-out-loud adventures is family tragedy and pain. In all, "Chickens Are Not Pets" is a brutally honest and soul-baring celebration of childhood. Not just John's, but the reader's, too.

More than just a cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet redefines what is meant by “traditional” Mexican food by reaching back through hundreds of years of history to reclaim heritage crops as a source of protection from modern diseases of development. Authors Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel are life partners; when Luz was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, they both radically changed their diets and began seeking out recipes featuring healthy, vegetarian Mexican foods. They promote a diet that is rich in plants indigenous to the Americas (corn, beans, squash, greens, herbs, and seeds).
This vegetarian cookbook features over 100 colorful, recipes based on Mesoamerican cuisine and also includes contributions from indigenous cultures throughout the Americas, such as Kabocha Squash in Green Pipian, Aguachile de Quinoa, Mesquite Corn Tortillas, Tepary Bean Salad, and Amaranth Chocolate Cake. Steeped in history but very much rooted in the contemporary world, Decolonize Your Diet will introduce readers to the the energizing, healing properties of a plant-based Mexican American diet.