Already the bio­log­i­cal par­ents of a sev­en-year-old son and a five-year-old daugh­ter, Claude Kno­bler and his wife decid­ed to adopt Nati, a five-year-old Ethiopi­an boy who seemed dif­fer­ent from Kno­bler in every con­ceiv­able way. After more than five years spent try­ing to turn his wild, sil­ly, adopt­ed African son into a qui­et, neu­rot­ic, Jew­ish guy like him­self, Kno­bler real­ized the impor­tance of hav­ing the courage to love, accept, and let go of his children.

In this won­der­ful­ly writ­ten mem­oir, Kno­bler explains how his expe­ri­ences rais­ing Nati led him to learn a les­son that applied equal­ly well to par­ent­ing his bio­log­i­cal chil­dren: It’s essen­tial to spend the time we are giv­en with our chil­dren to love them and enjoy them, rather than push and mold them into who we think they should be.