MSI Press Blog

  Today's back story is about the book, Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest  by Shenan (CB) Leaver with Betty Lou Leaver. From the co-author: CB Leaver , the author, is a mentally challenged CHARGE Syndrome adult who never learned to read or write. His mother, Betty Lou Leaver, a highly published author, who wanted her son to understand the purpose of the written word: sharing thoughts and/or information with others. It took a full year of working together to put CB's remembered stories on paper, to check that they had been accurately transcribed. CB learned a lot about the written word both in the process of writing and in getting feedback from pre-publication readers of the manuscript. CB subsequently did a book signing at the Los Angeles Book Fair. He had a great time learning about reader reactions to his book. He was also adept at using his people skills and humor to draw readers to his booth.  Book available at 25% discount with code FF25 at msipress.com/shop. Read excerpts a

  Excerpt from Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest (CB Leaver) - The Man in Our Dumpster When I was growing up, Daddy, Mommy, and all of us kids (sometimes we were four, sometimes we were six or seven) lived in a big house with 13 rooms in Salinas, California. When we finished growing up, Daddy got a hankering for the forest and Mommy got a hankering to give up cleaning 13 rooms all the time. So, they decided to buy an RV, travel when they could, and park it in the riverside woods of Arroyo Seco at other times where they lived comfortably and Mommy enjoyed a daily dip in the river. Moving out of 13 rooms was big business. Daddy and Mommy had quite a list of things to do: cleaning, giving away or selling stuff that would not fit in the RV, packing things to take with them, throwing away trash, and lots of other things (like changing addresses with businesses and the post office). One day when Daddy was out doing the lots of other things, Mommy held a yard sale. One of the people who c

excerpt from Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest The Babysitter When I was smaller, Mommy sent me to church every Sun­day morning. The church van always came at 9:15 to pick me up, and Mommy was always rushing to get me ready on time. One Sunday morning a man came to the door at 9:10. Mommy could not believe that the van was five minutes early. She always counted on those five minutes to get me ready. Usu­ally, no one came to the door, so she figured that they must have been sitting there for a while. She started to hurry. “Just a minute,” she said, leaving the door open. She quickly grabbed my suit coat and put it on me. “I just have to comb his hair; it will just be a second,” she called to the man at the door as she darted into the bathroom after a comb. A few seconds later, I looked mighty spiffy. “Almost ready,” she called out again, as she rushed upstairs to get my Bible and offering. Whew! She had never got me ready so fast. “Here he is,” she said, out of breath, as she pushed me out

  Shenan (CB) Leaver, author of Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest , was recently interviewed by the Mission Village Voice , where his book is being serialized. From the MVV introduction to the column: "Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest is collection of anecdotes about a 'detail-oblivious' homemaker and traveler, told from the point of view of CB, her mentally challenged son. The simplicity of language has made this book a favorite with ESL students, and the humorous 'conclusion' about life from a child's point of view endears it to anyone with a sense of humor. The reason CB's mother worked with him to write the book was to teach him the impact of literacy -- why people write and why people read. Even though it has been impossible for him to learn to read and write very much, through the joint preparation of the book he did learn a lot about literacy. CB is a 42-year-old CHARGE Syndrome, on of about 4-5 worldwide his age. He was given 0% chance of living, dispro

  Rare Disease Day is an observance held on the last day of February to raise awareness for rare diseases and improve access to treatment and medical representation for individuals with rare disease. Rare Disease Day is meaningful for MSI Press since one of its authors, Shenan (CB) Leaver suffers from CHARGE Syndrome. CHARGE is so rare that he is one of only a handful of survivors in his age group worldwide -- he has personally found four besides himself! CHARGE Syndrome is a disorder that affects many areas of the body. CHARGE is an abbreviation for several of the features common in the disorder: coloboma, heart defects, atresia choanae (also known as choanal atresia), growth retardation, genital abnormalities, and ear abnormalities. The pattern of malformations varies among individuals with this disorder, and the multiple health problems can be life-threatening in infancy. When CB was born 42 years ago, CHARGE was not even known! Now, 70% of children born with CHARGE make it to age

  excerpt from Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest There's a Stranger in Mommy's Bed Sometimes Mommy gets really tired. She says that working mothers reach proportions of exhaustion that exceed the imagi­nation. In such cases, what they say and do has little resem­blance to commonsense. I guess that must be right if I judge by my mommy. For example, let me tell you what happened to her one week­end. Friday evening after a long and frustrating, to say nothing of exhausting, week at work, she fell asleep on the living room sofa. (She does that a lot. She says she is going to watch television, but she never does. She just stares at the screen for a few minutes and then topples over. I have never seen her watch a whole tele­vision show like my siblings and I do.) Anyway, she did her frequent act of screen staring and top­pling over on the Friday evening I am talking about. My daddy, of course, could not wake her up; he never can when she topples over asleep. So, my sister found her asle

  Shenan (CB) Leaver's book, Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest, was translated into Russia and published in Russia, with excerpts in the Socionics Journal . For those who can read Russian, hear is some fun reading!! Мама отравила нашего гостя! (фрагменты из книги) Авторы: Си Би ЛИВЕР и Бетти Лу ЛИВЕР В своей книге Си Би Ливер, один из семи детей Бетти Ливер, решил рассказать о своей Маме, которая помогла ему с редактированием текста. К сожалению, хорошей фотографии Си Би не нашлось, поэтому помещаем только фотографию героини книги. Соционический тип: как нам кажется, хорошо виден из текста Эл. адреса: CBLeaver @ aol . com и Leaver @ aol . com Хаос на кухне. Моя Мама – очень хорошая Мама, но очень плохой повар. Однажды моей сестрёнке понадобилось принести на праздник девочек-скаутов "дьявольские яйца" (обычно их фаршируют майонезом и сладким красным перцем, но Мама, вид

Shenan (CB) Leaver has attended special education classes in Virginia, California, and Ohio and graduated from Hayes High School in Delaware, Ohio, where he was voted “class flirt.” A parishioner at the San Benedict (in the background) parish, he now lives in Hollister in San Benito County, California and works at a sheltered workshop, M&M, where he has many friends who like to listen to his tall tales, most of whichS are based on true stories, funny things that happen to one relative or another — or to him.     He has written a very special and very funny book about his mother,   Mommy Poisoned Our House Guest   (yes, true story). Stand by for edition 3, currently in the making. CB is also working on a similar volume about his father, tentatively titled   Daddy Waited . Shenan loves to receive email from readers! For more imformation on CB and his work, click HERE .

Happy Mother's Day! It is always important and gratifying to find a reason for joy in the midst of troubled times! And, if you have some reading time, here are some books written especially for mothers: 108 Yoga and Self-Care Practices for Busy Mama s by Julie Gentile Mama, do you find yourself too busy to take good care of yourself? Whatever your situation, you deserve spectacular health and wellness. With Julie M. Gentile as your personal wellness mentor, this book coaches you along your own authentic self-care path. Using 108 writing prompts and self-care practices, including yoga poses, meditations, and breathing exercises, Julie shows you practical ways to live well that only a mama modern would understand. Become the self-care goddess you truly want to be—you’re worth it! How to Be a Good Mother When You're Sick: A Guide to Motherhood with Chronic Illness by Dr. Emily Graves Soon after receiving her Bachelor’s Degree, Emily Graves was diagnosed w

Kitchen Chaos My mommy is a very nice mommy, but she is a very bad cook. When my sister needed to take some deviled eggs to Rain­bow Girls’ meeting, my mommy made them. Mommy didn’t re­ally want to make them. She wanted to find some place to buy them. However, the leader of the Rainbow Girls’ chapter told Mommy that they were asking all the mommies to make, not buy, the food contributions in order to set a good example for the girls in the chapter. Some example! Against her better judgment and protesting all the way, my sister, Fawn, took them to her meeting. We all knew what would happen. Sure enough, Fawn came back home with all the eggs except one. After one person had tasted one of the eggs, no one else wanted to eat them. Mommy said she did not understand what the problem was. She had made only one small change to the recipe. Since she did not have any paprika, she used some­thing that she thought would be okay because it looked very much like paprika: cayenne peppe