And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. Lauries novels are ONE TWO THREE, THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS, GOODBYE FOR NOW, and THE ATLAS OF LOVE. Laurie Frankel’s This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. This is how children change…and then change the world. And its about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated. Laurie Frankels THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. Then Poppy’s teacher said she couldn’t be a baseball announcer because of the hedge enemy. She said at school that she wanted to be a baseball announcer, and one of the boys said she couldn’t do that because she is a girl. This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them. One day, Poppy comes home and asks Penn what the hedge enemy is.

The book this is how it always is