Authors and lay counselors Ray and Debbie Alsdorf help blended families move beyond the "happily ever after" image of one famous TV family now in perpetual reruns, in Beyond the Brady Bunch: Hope and Help for Blended Families. The book emphasizes heart change among family members, not just how-to advice. Having gone through the blender themselves, the Alsdorfs' four, now-grown children also contribute to the book, released in August from David C. Cook.

Speaking of the Bradys, one who came to despise the "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" line has written her own memoir. In Here's The Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice (It Books/HarperCollins Publishers), Maureen McCormick tells of her less-than-ideal childhood and teen years, but also of her church involvement.

When she experienced "a sign God was real," she sensed God's physically pushing her down and then seeing arms come down from the sky (p. 148). After friends helped her to her feet, she writes that they took her "around the corner to a Christian bookstore, where I recounted the experience to some people," adding, "It was quite a scene. Some of them handed me little pieces of paper on which they'd written verses of Scripture."

A woman at the store asked her how she felt. Her reply: "Changed." But, she wrote, "I didn't think it could be that easy--and it wasn't."

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