HAPPY BIRTHDAY! When Cousin Curtis called last month to thank you for the lovely book you sent him, he mentioned that he was throwing a surprise party this month for his wife Wanda. Ah, yes, Wanda the Wife if Curtis is the guy who has it all, it’s probably because Wanda has been the one juggling it. Wanda’s birthday gift needs to remind her that she’s special and appreciated. What birthday gift is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and doesn’t require a sitter when left at home? Why, books, of course! A good story about friendship is always appreciated. Richard Ezra Probert, music teacher and wood/metal craftsman, has chronicled his friendship with Archie Raasch in Archie’s Way. Amid the tools and planks, Archie and Richard forged a friendship that spanned 15 years. The lessons Richard learned (and subsequently shares with readers), however, will last a lifetime. Makes a wonderful gift for someone who has had or has been a mentor. Wanda remembers the mid-1950s (though she’s reluctant to admit it); every child was taught to fear polio, and the summers just seemed hotter back then. She would love Pat Cunningham Devoto’s first novel, My Last Days as Roy Rogers (Warner, $20, 0446523887). Heroine Tab Rutland’s prologue foreshadows that the summer of 1954 was a messenger of great changes to come. Readers, prepare to discover a world where it does, in fact, matter from which side of the Mason-Dixon you come; proprietors are assisted by double-barrel shotguns, and creative accounting wasn’t created during the 1980s. A great novel for those who like to remember, or for those who are visiting post-World War II America for the first time.

You still laugh when Curtis recounts Wanda’s attempts to train that mutt she adopted; housebreaking remains a sore subject for poor Wanda, and a mystery to her canine. To show your support for her efforts, Why We Love Dogs: A Bark and Smile Book (Andrews McMeel, $12.95, 0836269713) makes a wonderful gift. Black-and-white photographs capture the essence of dogs; brief, large text descriptions remind humans of the joys of dog ownership (lest they forget the next time they discover that their potted plants have been mutilated!).

On the brink of a new millennium, teenagers everywhere have opinions about the world that they are inheriting. From Johannesburg to Kiev, Belfast to San Francisco, teens worldwide offer an honest portrayal of the state of things in Hear These Voices: Youth at the Edge of the Millennium (Dutton’s Children’s Books, $22.99, 0525453539). Author Anthony Allison is a photographer and youth counselor who has traveled to various points on the map, talking to at risk children about their experiences and their hopes for the future. Complete with striking black-and-white photographs, Hear These Voices presents gripping stories in a forthright and respectable manner. Perfect for educators, counselors, or anyone else who is concerned about today’s youth. A time management queen like Wanda probably feels like her reign is always in jeopardy. Life Balance, Inc. president Mary LoVerde has written Stop Screaming at the Microwave: How to Connect Your Disconnected Life (Fireside, $12, 0684853973) for seasoned veterans or novices at the keeping up with life game. LoVerde presents a step-by-step approach, taking small steps to the big finish. She identifies plans of action with regard to family, career, social life, and beyond. Readers, beware: after reading about how to keep up, you might find yourselves actually (gasp!) getting ahead!

In Clara, the Early Years Margo Kaufman, a columnist and panelist on NPR’s news-quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, does tell the often hilarious story of her pug Clara and the havoc she wreaks with her owner’s life. A pug owner since the age of 19, Kaufman knew that the small black pug named Clara was different from her previous dogs. She writes that before Clara, I was not a Pet Parent. The pugs were dogs. Cute dogs, willful dogs, lovable to be sure, but I was a Human. I was in charge. Then along came Clara, and all bets were off. Kaufman’s legion and riotous tales illustrate the extent of Clara’s prima donna attitude. Clara shops in Saks, where the shoe salesmen fuss over her and she can visit the pet boutique, attends the Pug Luck Garden Party to benefit homeless pugs, gets a write-up in the New York Post, and upstages her owner on a book tour by wearing a baseball cap adorned with the name of the book to signings and interviews. As Kaufman writes, The pug and I did share a blind spot. For all our combined knowledge, there was one fact neither of us truly understood. Clara was not a person. This reality makes no difference until Kaufman and her husband decide to adopt a human baby who threatens to push Clara out of the spotlight as the couple’s and the book’s attention turns to Russia and Nicholas, their new son.

Pug lessons are sometimes poignant. As Kaufman writes of her pugs when she and her husband finally receive their baby, I had spent 20 years caring for small creatures, nurturing them, attending to their every need. And in exchange, they prepared me well. Kaufman’s narration remains humorous but also tackles the larger issues involved in creating a family and demonstrating love as she describes life with the dogs she adores as well as her husband and son. Fortunately, Clara and Nicholas demonstrate their own bond. As their proud mother writes of her baby, Among his first words,"Clara."

You can put fame to all sorts of uses. In Family Outing, Chastity Bono, daughter of actress and singer Cher and the late politician Sonny Bono, puts it to one of the best: encouraging social change. Family Outing is Bono’s coming out story and much more. It’s also the story of how Cher came to terms with her daughter’s homosexuality. While Cher’s and her daughter’s notoriety will undoubtedly attract readers, possibly even readers not directly confronting homosexuality, notoriety has a drawback: many people curious about the personal lives of movie actors and academy award recipients can’t identify with them. Bono and her co-author, Billie Fitzpatrick, anticipated this problem and solved it by interviewing other gay men and lesbians and their parents and including the coming out stories of these less notorious but more accessible people in the book. With the wealth of perspectives Family Outing provides, any gay or lesbian person struggling to come out, and any parent coping with the reality of a gay child, will find a story with which to identify.

Bono expands the definition of coming out to mean a series of adjustments that parents of lesbians and gays, as well as lesbians and gays themselves, have to go through. The organization of Family Outing reflects this expansion. The book is divided into two sections called Coming out Ourselves and Parents Come out Too. Both sections are organized around themes, such as unearthing homophobia and learning to accept, that describe what Bono and Fitzpatrick call the universal stages of coming out. While the organization makes it difficult to trace any one family’s coming out process from beginning to end, it does allow readers to quickly locate experiences directly relevant to their own.

One of the most interesting and valuable stories in the book is Bono’s description of how, in response to her unauthorized outing by the tabloid The Star in 1990, she let her own homophobia drive her back into the closet. I was afraid, she explains that I would hurt my budding music career if I were honest. Another revealing story is Cher’s explanation of why, even though she had many homosexual friends, when she first suspected Chastity was a lesbian, she couldn’t get past the negative stereotypes. It’s a different thing that happens with your child, Cher says, it’s not the same. Chastity Bono and Cher are scheduled to appear together on Oprah, Dateline NBC, and Good Morning America. While their appearances will undoubtedly promote book sales, the true value of the publicity lies elsewhere. By telling their stories, the two women are demystifying the coming-out process and providing a role model for families who want to focus on the positive qualities of a gay child rather than on the stereotypical misconceptions that associate homosexuality with failure and defeat.

Connie Miller lives and writes in Seattle.

The wait is killing us. Basketball fans want to know in some cases need to know if Michael Jordan has taken his final shot as a player in the National Basketball Association. The future of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls was a major subplot to the 1997-98 NBA season. While the Bulls went about the business of winning another world championship, everyone was dogging the various members of the organization along the way to find out if this was indeed a last hurrah. Jordan, now 35 but still capable of pulling us out of our seats at any moment after another spectacular play, said he’d considered coming back for another season if the rest of his championship cast came back.

Once the Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz in the finals for their sixth championship in eight years in June, coach Phil Jackson wasted little time in cleaning out his office and heading to Montana. Scottie Pippin, one of the greatest players in league history in his own right, sounded like a man who was ready to claim free-agent riches from another team when he spoke right after the Finals. The 1998 season sure felt like the last ride for one of the great teams in basketball history.

Then the lockout came in July. Basketball players and owners couldn’t figure out how to divide the millions upon millions of dollars coming into their collective bank accounts. Players transactions were put indefinitely on hold. As summer came to an end, the league’s record of never missing a regular- season game due to a labor dispute appeared in serious jeopardy. But the casual fan didn’t care much about that. That fan was more interested in knowing if Jordan would ever play again, and that hadn’t been resolved as of late September.

So, we wait.

At least Jordan has given us something to do while waiting for some sort of resolution. He has produced a book called For the Love of the Game, which reviews his pro career to date. It was produced in conjunction with the same people who worked on Rare Air with him, and it features a similar if much larger format.

Jordan and his staff went through almost 10,000 photographs to pick out the 200 used in the book. A particularly striking one is a double-page shot of Jordan’s personal trophy room at home. The shelves are stacked up with awards, as you’d expect, but the floor contains the biggest surprise. It’s made up of the wood from the middle of the basketball court at the new demolished Chicago Stadium, complete with the angry bull’s face in the center circle.

The photos are complimented by more than 20,000 words by Jordan himself. It’s an effort to put his career into a bit more perspective than we usual get from him. The daily sound bites in the media from Jordan usually center on his next game or his last game, so it’s nice to read him expounding on some different subjects.

No one could blame Jordan if he decided to quit basketball right now. He is universally acclaimed as the greatest all-around player in the history of his sport, and he’s won championships in his last six full seasons. Jordan’s final moment in the 1998 playoffs might have been his best. He stole a pass from Utah’s Karl Malone and then hit a jump shot in the final seconds to give his team a victory and a title in Game Six all while realizing that an injury to Pippin would make victory for his team in Game Seven an almost impossible task. No one could have staged a better exit line.

But then again, another championship will be an even greater challenge this coming season, and as For the Love of the Game proves Jordan always has liked a challenge. His fans, then, will look through this book, smile at the memories of his accomplishments, and wait to see if he will add to them in the future.

Budd Bailey is a writer in Buffalo, New York.