Inspired by the pandemic and her own teenage daughter's upcoming departure from home, editor Vanessa Rush Southern set out to collect an anthology of reflections on the spiritual gifts and challenges of raising young people and the ways that those who nurture and teach children are nurtured and taught themselves. In reflecting with others, she found an array of life experiences, choices, struggles, and insights. She found joy and deep meaning pressed up against all the hard parts, tumbling out between diapers and carpool runs, bursting like fireworks in the midst of casual conversations and rainy days. She found that the young lives that intersect or get invited into relationship with our own shape and change us and those we love in ways both startling and universal. This inclusive and diverse anthology includes all kinds of families, chosen and biological, extended families, single parents, divorced parents, and more-a beautiful spectrum of people reflecting on the place children and young people have played in their lives and in their larger search for meaning. LITTLE DID I KNOW goes well beyond the sentimental to an honest reckoning with the vulnerability and beauty of parenting and caregiving.

• Online campaign featuring social media images with blurbs and reviews of the book as well as designed graphics of selected excerpts.
• Early reviewer promotion through advance copies to encourage reader reviews and generate buzz.
• National review outreach to trade and print publications (PW, Kirkus, Booklist, Library Journal, Foreword, New York Times) and online (NPR, Spirituality & Practice, Book Riot)
• Advertising in print publications (Sojourners) and online (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Sojo mail)
• Promotion on the publisher's website (skinnerhouse.org), Twitter feed (@skinnerhouse), Instagram page (@skinnerhouse), Facebook page (/skinnerhouse), Tumblr page (@skinnerhousebooks), Pinterest (@skinnerhousebks) and publisher's e-newsletter.
• Promotion during relevant times of the year like back to school.

About the Author
Vanessa Rush Southern is the Senior Minister of The First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco and has served congregations in Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Summit, New Jersey. She is the author of two books, This Piece of Eden and Miles of Dream, and has been published in The Dallas Morning News, Scroll India, and Woman's Day Magazine.

Reviews

"Vanessa Rush Southern's beautiful anthology encompasses many perspectives on parenting, from writers who choose not to parent-and those who can't-to those who do, sharing the complexities, joys, and sorrows of shepherding young lives. The book reflects the choices we make around children, and the ones that life makes for us, with wisdom and tenderness. -Susan Spencer, former editor in chief, Woman's Day and author of When Action Follows Heart: 365 Ways to Share Kindness

Book Information
ISBN 9781558968868
Author Vanessa Rush Southern
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Skinner House Books
Publisher Skinner House Books