In this "refreshingly relatable" (Outside) memoir, perfect for the
self-isolating family, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family
on a journey around the world to change their lives together.What
happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids' lives upside down in
search of a new way to be a family?
Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy
professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their
children's time wisely, and when they weren't arguing over screen time,
the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen
daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But
aren't families supposed to achieve happiness together?
In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the
fractious, loving Kois' go in search of other places on the map that
might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together.
Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa
Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of
busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside
the East Coast parenting bubble.
HOW TO BE A FAMILY brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty,
solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly
Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the
pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to
love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews
neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these
places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's
lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them
wherever we go?
A journalistic memoir filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining,
HOW TO BE A FAMILY will make readers dream about the amazing adventures
their own families might take.
