Books about Homefront from Amazon.com

As anyone with a spouse in uniform knows, the military offers families neither geographical stability nor guarantees of life under one roof. Those conditions make it tough to keep a marriage together, raise good kids, and maintain some semblance of normalcy, but help is on the way. Jacey Eckhart’s new guide navigates readers through military life on the homefront. Aiming her advice at the wife—male spouses, she says, need their own book—she covers issues from the first day in the "fortress" to the last day the husband is piped ashore with humor and encouragement. An Air Force brat herself, Eckhart swore she would never enter the military, but married the first Navy man she dated and over the past seventeen years has raised three children, moved thirteen times, and tackled five deployments. She argues that being able to manage military life is not a secret some wives know and others don’t, but rather a set of skills to be acquired.

Eckhart presents the realities and then offers some solutions for the married-but-single parent, starting out on the bottom rung of the career ladder with each move, and worrying if military life is hurting the kids. She helps newlyweds and long-marrieds alike better understand the people who are drawn to military service and find ways to fit into the military community without losing a sense of self. Her guide offers helpful ideas about managing the demands of a teenager during a move, finding playmates for toddlers in new neighborhoods, and even telling mothers-in-law why they shouldn’t be at the homecoming. She also lists methods of finding full and part-time work. From pre-deployment work-ups through Christmas blues and post-deployment problems, Eckhart and her guide are at the homefront ready to help..
Price: $12.26 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Many Americans will never experience the gut-wrenching act of sending a loved one off to war, or the joy and stress of welcoming him or her home. Still less known to most of us are the anxiety-ridden moments between these two scenes, the day-to-day reality of life in a military family when a loved one is deployed in a combat zone. While They're at War takes us inside hearts and homes to illuminate the unseen aspects of this critical American story.

We meet two very different women, Marissa Bootes and Beth Pratt, both newlyweds experiencing life alone at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while their husbands are fighting in Iraq. Through the extraordinary stories of these and other military spouses, Kristin Henderson reveals the overwhelming effects of separation -- from fears of death to worries about financial stability and marital fidelity. She also explores the official and unofficial support systems that strain to help homefront families endure some of their greatest challenges..
Price: $5.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

When Gayle gets into trouble with her boyfriend, her mother sends the street-smart 14-year-old--and her baby, Jos--down to Georgia, to live with Uncle Luther and his family. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one around except kneesock-wearing, Jesus-praising cousin Cookie. Then Gayle meets Great, the family matriarch--and her stories of the past begin to change how Gayle sees her future. Williams-Garcia has surpassed herself.She has set these fictional characters firmly in the real world while still allowing them to rise from the pages and into readers' hearts and imaginations. --The Horn Book, starred review .
Price: $2.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The daughter of ex-cop Phil Broker and ex-army major/anti-terrorist operative Nina Pryce, Kit Broker is no ordinary eight-year-old. She has seen more -- and survived more -- than most grown-ups And now she has inadvertently invited a nightmare into the lives of those she loves.

Phil Broker and his family moved to tiny Glacier Falls, Minnesota, to heal from the psychological wounds they received while helping to avert an inhuman act of terror. But young Kit chose the wrong adversary when she triumphed over local schoolyard bully Teddy Klumpe -- for the boy's disreputable clan does unholy business from the darkest shadows of their small town . . . and they do not forgive. What begins as a minor feud between neighbors quickly escalates into a major offensive of intimidation, destruction, fear . . . and death. And the worst is yet to come -- because terror has come home.

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Price: $1.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A look at Fayetteville, North Carolina, home to Fort Bragg, that poses the question,"Are we all military dependents?"

Fayetteville has earned the nicknames of Fatalville and Fayettenam Unusual and not-sounusual features of the town include gross income inequalities, an extraordinarily high incidence of venereal disease, miles and miles of strip malls, and a history of racial violence. Through interviews with residents and historical research, Catherine Lutz immerses herself in the life of the town to discover how it has supported the military for over a century. From secret training operations that use civilians as mock enemies and allies to the satellite economy of the town, Lutz's history of Fayetteville reveals the burdens that military preparedness creates for all of us.

"Any reader will find [Lutz's] conclusions . . . provocative.
—Publishers Weekly

"Rich in storytelling, history, and political commentary, with implications far beyond Fayetteville."
—Michael Sherry, author of In the Shadow of War

"In no small part, Homefront chronicles Fayetteville through the trials and triumphs of the downtrodden, the underdogs and the disfranchised."
—Greg Barnes, Fayetteville Observer

"First rate."
—Louis B. Cei, Richmond Times Dispatch

"Penetrating."
—Ann Jarmusch, San Diego Union-Tribune

Catherine A. Lutz is professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the author of Unnatural Emotions and coauthor, with Jane L. Collins, of Reading National Geographic..
Price: $9.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What they’re saying about AAMIE’S WAR

“Profoundly moving … I couldn’t put it down!”

Zella Brown, Cofounder of One By One
Jewish German Reconciliation Through Dialogue

“A compelling and sensitive personal account, at times charming and tender, at times grimly upsetting … Honest, painful and necessary, this book offers an important perspective rarely read in America. … An important addition to the human saga of war and the tragic condition of mankind in all it’s paradoxical complexity.”

Lawrence Lowenthal, Director of the New England Region
American Jewish Committee

“Marga Dieter captures so well the thinking and heart of a little German girl caught in the ravages of the Second World War.”

Joan Ecklein, Former Co-Chair of the Boston Chapter
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

“These poignant experiences of an innocent, bright and lively young girl, acutely remembered by an adult woman, and told with sensitivity and a wonderful sense of drama, will fill the void left by the silent generation of Germany’s war children.”

Barbara Eskin, Moderator of the German Book Club
Goethe Institute, Boston

Bombs, destruction and emotional devastation form the backdrop for Aamie’s childhood on the homefront in Germany during World War II. What might seem crushing to most little girls is just everyday life for her.

In a neighborhood where the walls are plastered with posters proclaiming “THE ENEMY IS ALWAYS LISTENING!” and people live by the secrets they keep, any revelation of her mother’s sentiments against the Nazis is a danger to her family’s very survival.

Her father, in the Navy, is eventually captured and serves as a POW, until Aamie is nine years old.

Her mother’s struggle to maintain their family and raise two teenage boys, who are members of the mandatory Hitler Youth program, within the turmoil of war-torn Germany drives her to physical and nervous breakdown.

Yet Aamie, with the support of her Greek Chorus of celluloid dolls, ponders and overcomes these obstacles with an irrepressible tom-boy spirit.

An intensely told story of a wartime childhood, this book is a reminder of how children’s emotional lives play out against the horror and destruction of war.

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Price: $9.37 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Homefront is the relatively unexplored war story told from the point of view of someone living day-to-day through a deployment .
Price: $15.24 [Notify me when price goes down.]