Publishers Weekly - March 7, 2016

for grandfathers).

As Stahl points out, that young age, coupled with longer life spans, represents a large-scale shift in the role of grandparents in U. S. culture.

No matter where readers fall in age or experience, this book should top their

2016 reading list of parenting titles. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Apr.)

The Pediatrician’s Guide to Feeding Babies and Toddlers: Practical Answers to Your Questions on Nutrition, Starting Solids, Allergies, Picky Eating, and More

Anthony Porto and Dina DiMaggio. Ten Speed,

$18.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-60774-

901-1

Pediatricians Porto and DiMaggio offer a systematically organized, practical, and up-to-date guide to baby feeding from birth until toddlerhood. Their work will leave parents feeling informed but not overwhelmed. Different sections address different developmental stages, including feeding milestones and key issues for each age group, such as how to tell whether a newborn is hungry, starting four- to six-month-olds on solids, and dealing with picky eating in toddlers. Each section ends with a small selection of simple, healthy recipes, created in consultation with a dietician and two chefs; recipes that serve “double duty” as baby food purees and easy family meals will be particularly useful. Porto and DiMaggio address dietary hot topics—including dairy-free formulas, vegetarian diets, organic foods, gluten-free diets, and food allergies— with a calm clarity that accommodates parents’ preferences without giving in to bad popular science. They give strong guidance on determining whether a child is hitting a normal, common developmental challenge or experiencing a more serious issue. Parents will find the chapters useful to read through as their children reach each stage, and well enough organized to use as a reference when particular concerns come up. (Apr.)

and beauty, Charles modestly acknowledges that their techniques are not original. They draw on a multitude of sources from indigenous Asian and South

American cultures to 19th-century Parisian market gardeners and modern California biointensive gardening, and their teachers include English agrarian-self-sufficiency author John Seymour, Maine year-round farming expert Elliot Coleman, Quebec market gardener Jean-Martin Fortier, and a number of French organic-farming pioneers. Charles extrapolates from his own experience and environmental concerns to propose a worldwide agricultural transformation into “agrarian solidarity systems,” quasi-land trusts managed and cultivated by multiple individual farmers and the cottage industries that develop from them.

The book is more about inspiration than nuts and bolts; readers looking for specific details of the farm’s systems should hold out for the Hervé-Gruyers’ market gardening manual, which is in the works.

Color photos. (Mar.)

Parenting

; Becoming Grandma:
The Joys and Science of the
New Grandparenting

Lesley Stahl. Pengiun/Blue Rider, $27 (288p)

ISBN 978-0-399-16815-4

When becoming a grandparent invigorated 60 Minutes correspondent Stahl “with new purpose,” she decided to research others’ experiences, and the result is this energetic, informative, and often touching book. In the hands of a less sensitive reporter, it might come across as a study of grandparenting by the one percent; Stahl readily admits that taking flights just to visit her grandchildren is a privilege few Americans share. Instead, she takes pains to profile multi-generational families at a variety of income levels, while also showing how grandparenting can be therapeutic and “curative in a profound way.” It might even be helping the economy— grandparent spending has increased sevenfold in the last decade. Stahl includes stories of generational conflict and her personal regrets as a working mother along with plentiful glimpses of her family’s joys and those of many other families. The statistics are surprising: the median age of new grandmothers in the U.S. is 50 ( 54

FICTION Three-Martini Lunch Suzanne Rindell. Putnam, ISBN 978-0-399-16548-1, Apr.

At the Edge of the Orchard Tracy Chevalier.

Viking, ISBN 978-0-525-95300-5, Mar.

Unruly Ronnie Douglas. Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-238962-6, Mar.

Green Island Shawna Yang Ryan. Knopf, ISBN 978-1-101-87425-7, Feb.

A Barrow Boy’s Cadenza: In E Flat Major

Pete Adams. Urbane, ISBN 978-1-909273-96-2, Feb.

The Bell Tower Sarah Rayne. Severn, ISBN 978-0-7278-8559-3, Feb.

One More Day Kelly Simmons. Sourcebooks Landmark, ISBN 978-1-4926-1864-5, Feb.

The Daredevils Gary Amdahl. Counterpoint/ Soft Skull, ISBN 978-1-59376-629-0, Feb.

Moonlight Over Paris Jennifer Robson.

Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-238982-4, Jan.

NONFICTION Literary Publishing in the Twenty-First Century Edited by Travis Kurowski, Wayne Miller, and Kevin Prufer. Milkweed, ISBN 978-1-57131-354-6, Apr.