Families come in all sizes, shapes, and traditions, each a unique variation of a universal human theme. Whether one comes from a heterosexual, single-sex, or one-parent home, stability and love are paramount. Unfortunately, in the United States, the absence of fathers from their children’s lives has become a real problem. In fact, the Brookings Institute has identified absentee fathers as America's most pressing problem—greater than the economy, education, the environment, health care, infrastructure, you name it. Why? Because nearly every social ill finds an umbrella, a home if you will, in the fatherless home.

Choosing Fatherhood: America's Second Chance is meant to explore this issue as no previous book has. And it does so through the art of photography, in which Lewis Kostiner makes portraits of dads who are involved in their children's lives. The book is also accompanied by essays written by leading authorities on the subject: Juan Williams of FOX News, David Travis who was Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago for more than thirty-five years, sociologist Shipra Parikh at Loyola University in Chicago, sociologist Derrick M. Bryan at the Morehouse College, and Roland Warren, former director of the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing fatherhood in America, who also served on President Obama's task force on fatherless homes.

Getting fathers to be more involved in their children’s lives is of paramount importance, if the United States is to regain ground as an international leader. Right now, the statistics look grim: forty years ago only eleven percent of America's children lived in homes without fathers, but today more than a third do. This translates into high poverty rates, high drop-out rates in high school, high rates of incarceration, multiple behavioral problems, and the list goes on.

As President Obama has declared, fatherhood does not begin with the ecstasy of conception but with the beauty of childbirth and the responsibilities that come with creating and caring for a human life. Although changes in custody rulings and other policy remedies are possible, behavioral patterns are often outside the reach of policy. Choosing Fatherhood offers a hopeful direction that America does have a second chance at correcting a troubling trend, but time is slipping, and awareness of the problem is an important start.

(See the publishers website for further information about events and a slide show from the book: http://gftbooks.com/books_Kostiner.html )

Go here to see an interview with the photographer Lewis Kostiner and Juan Williams who wrote the introduction: http://video.foxnews.com/v/2197946608001/

LEWIS KOSTINER was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada, in 1950 and was raised in Montreal before his family moved to Westbury, Long Island, in 1962. He earned his B.A. in liberal arts, with an emphasis in photography and creative writing, at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he also studied at the Rhode Island School of Design with Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, and Emmit Gowen. He completed his Msc. in photography at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, where he studied with Arthur Siegel, Garry Winogrand, and Geoff Winningham. After he left Brown, he assisted Aaron Siskind for many years and traveled with him worldwide. From 1973 to 1981 he was an adjunct professor of photography at Columbia College Chicago, and he is currently a faculty member in the Department of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His photographs are in the permanent collections of, and have been exhibited at, the Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and Museum of Modern Art in New York City, among many others. Lewis is married to Anne Neri Kostiner, and they have two daughters, Rickie and Tess.

Kostiner is a Chicago-based photographer who became involved with the National Fatherhood Initiative, travelled to community-based NFI programs, and met with and photographed fathers and children. This volume presents his photos full page in an elegant volume (oversize: 10" x 11") with thorough narrative captioning. Also included are essays by journalist Juan Williams; the former president of NFI, Roland C. Warren; the retired curator of photography of the Art Institute of Chicago, David Travis; Shipra S. Parkih, a psychotherapist from Chicago); and Derrick M. Bryan (Sociology, Morehouse College). They write about the importance of fathers and fatherhood and doing it well and offer suggestions for readings and viewings.   -- Book News, Inc., February 2013

Choosing Fatherhood: America's Second Chance with photos by Lewis Kostiner is a beautiful, large format, full color book of poignant photographs and essays about fatherhood in America. Since World War II the number of fatherless children in the United States has risen from 11 percent to over one third, and it is wreeking havoc and grief in almost every sector of this country. According to the heart-stopping essays by several renowned authors, the absence of fathers in the home is the root cause of the huge increase of poverty, drop-out rates of schools, incarceration, behavioral problems, child abuse, and feelings of abandonment for more than 24 million children today. The book, presented by The National Fatherhood Initiative Organization, is a very important one, and its message offers ways to educate men about the responsibilities and delights and rewards of being present as their children grow up. Get this book for your library!   -- Bonnie Neely, Amazon Top Reviewer, January 2013

"Open your eyes. Open your arms. Embrace these family pictures! They capture the joys and complexities of fatherhood. Here are images that stand as a compelling alternative to this generation's commonplace picture of children without fathers."   -- Juan Williams, FOX News, 2012

"Lewis Kostiner became engaged in the subject of American fatherhood because of a current crisis in our society: far too many fathers are absent from their children’s lives. This has come to affect a vast population of children and thus the future of us all. Kostiner, himself, was without the daily presence of his father from the age of three. This is the personal history that naturally informs his vision and feelings. But, despite his opinions and sympathies, Kostiner does not insert a dogmatic ideology or overt sentimentality into these portraits of fathers and their families. Rather, he respects that aspect of photography that sidles up upon neutral expression and is concerned with sensitive and perceptive fact-gathering. After all, his subject is not a fairy tale but a serious reality that needs to be understood from what actually exists."   -- David Travis, Retired Curator of Photography, Art Institute of Chicago, 2012