MSI Press Blog

  We cannot tell the back story of 10 Quick Homework Tips without telling the story of is sister book, 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents . So, here is the link to that back story , which we shared last Sunday Back Story of  10 Quick Homework Tips by Cindy McKinley Alder & Patti Trombly [Please do read the back story for 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents to learn how Cindy and Patti met.] A few years ago, after listening to the frustrations of parents trying to find time for everything as well as struggling to work with their kids at home more during the pandemic, Patti and I decided to create a “quick tip” book to help. It seemed homework issues were especially overwhelming and challenging for busy parents.   So, we worked together again and wrote a short book on   easy ways parents could help ease the frustrations of homework battles.   10 Quick Homework Tips was not as time-consuming, but just as fun for us to write.   It feels great to share so man...

Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie: -46-   Understanding and love are not two things, but just one. When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry. To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion. When you understand, you love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.   Thich Nhat Hanh   As a young African-American boy growing up in predominantly white Boston suburb, Daryl Davis knew little of racism. As he moved along into his middle school years, though, incidents began to come up that showed him the dark reality of racial discrimination even in his comfortable northern community. His experiences prompted a life-long question, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” As an adult, Davis became a professional musician, performing boogie w...

Back Story  of  365 Teachers Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Elementary Child Succeed in School  by Cindy McKinley Alder & Patti Trombly Nearly 30 years ago, I met Patti in the back row of a grad school classroom at Eastern Michigan University.  Our professor had us begin the class by writing out a “Bliss List”: all the things that made us happy.  When we compared lists, we were shocked to see they were almost identical! We were both due to have our first babies in a few months, both elementary school teachers, both working on a Masters in Reading, and both had a weakness for soft pretzels. We didn’t know it at the time, but that day sparked a decades-long friendship. Throughout the years, Patti taught upper elementary, and I taught the lower grades.  We met weekly with our four kids and, of course, always ended up talking about teaching and how eager the parents were to find ways to help their kids at home.  I eventu...

This book contains 100 miracles from the Gospels -- and similar true-story miracles for today, for a total of 400 (!!) miracles described, explained, and discussed in the book, with questions for individual or group reflection. Here is one of those miracles with its modern-day counterparts: A BIG FISH STORY  (Gospel account in Luke 5:1-11)  Peter and Andrew were fishermen by trade. They’d caught thousands of fish and no doubt loved to swap fish stories with their friends, but this particular fish story topped them all. Here is what happened: One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to hear this charismatic street preacher. He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge—their owners had left them and were washing their nets. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. Then he sat down in the boat and continued teaching the people. When he finished speaking, he s...

  Today's back story is about the book, It Only Hurts When I Can't Run  by Gewanda Parker. From the publisher: When Gewanda approached us with her pre-publication manuscript, it was clear that here was a person who had experienced tremendous trauma as a child. That is a story, of course. A sad story. However, what was also clear was her resilience in overcoming that trauma very, very successfully. That was a story worth publishing. An uplifting story. A story that can help others. More important for us as publisher, it fit into a line of such books, the leaders of which were Elizabeth Mahlou's Blest Atheist and Geri Henderson's and Seanne Emerton's Healing from Incest -- and ultimate prompted the commissioned book by Joanna Romer, Recovering from Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Abuse . When it was released, Gewanda's book quickly flew to the top of Amazon's hot new releases lists: #4 Hot New Releases in the child abuse category #8 Hot New Releases in the fam...

  Today's book back story provides inside information about  One Simple Text.. . (Shaw & Brown).  From the publisher -  Betty Shaw and Dave Brown brought to the press a great story. One of tragedy that through patient fortitude, medical skill, and great faith turned into triumph. Of a life almost lost because of one simple text while driving. The what and who of that text I will leave readers to discover. A story that had propelled the author and the protagonist of the story, her daughter, to Oprah Winfrey's TV show. They had, however, not yet written a book. (Advice here: if you have the opportunity for world-class publicity, get your book done in advance; it is so  helpful for book promotion to have the publicity come after the book and not afterward.) They needed some help in refining the story into a book that works. That is where MSI Press came in. We do this all the time with first-time authors. We help turn their wonderful but seemingly unmanageable s...

Available now on pre-order!  Nothing So Broken  - war, memoir, more. Today we provide a precerpt (an excerpt from a book not yet published) -  -basketball-   Steven and Johnny sped behind the back of the Bott house, past the above-ground pool, then circled round the front yard. Like a gazelle evading a mildly concussed cheetah, Johnny zigged and zagged, keeping his brother off balance just enough to maintain a small lead. Steven’s face blazed, a contorted mask of rage, a small red circle on his forehead from where the ball had struck moments before. The boys took a sharp turn into the garage and disappeared, the screen door slamming behind them. If my window was open and the nearby highway wasn’t busy with rush hour traffic, I could hear that screen door slam all the way from my bedroom. I would often look out the window to see who was exiting the garage. We named the Bott’s driveway, the Bott-on Garden, even though it resembled a miniature golf course more than the ...