Embrace the Merciless Joy: The McSweeney’s Guide to Rearing Small, Medium, and Large Children

McSweeney’s editors Monks and Traig gather laugh-out-loud parenting wisdom in this compendium of games, essays, and tongue-in-cheek quizzes. Many parenting books are “filled with completely reasonable advice, but they’re too dry and boring to actually read,” writes Nick Kroll in his introduction, and the pieces that follow are anything but. Sara Hutto offers a list of “Myth Versus Fact for My Kids” in which she discloses that “mommy’s special bean dip is the source of all her powers and how she casts spells and also it’s chocolate,” while Mary Kay Jordan Flemming assesses via a questionnaire if readers are up to the task of parenting (asking if they “enjoy cooking for people whose best reviews include the words yuck, gross, disgusting, and blech?”). Kimberly Harrington shares a “Homeschooling While Working from Home During a Global Pandemic Bingo” board (complete with squares for “crying” and “night coffee”), and Carlos Greaves doles out “Advice-Column Questions from Famous Fictional Parents” (“Does she have any hobbies besides defeating the Huns?” he writes in response to Mulan’s father). This quirky collection will remind those with children not to take themselves too seriously. Fans of Adam Mansbach’s Go the F**k to Sleep are in for a treat. (Nov.)