book review: My Mother Wears Combat Boots: A Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us
I’m really terribly fond of Jessica Mills’s book My Mother Wears Combat Boots. It was a slow start for me–I felt fussy about it during the opening chapters, resistant to it. I don’t generally like...
View Articlebook review: Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers
In their 2001 anthology Breeder, editors Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender brought together 36 short essays on mothering. And, like so many anthologies, it’s a mixed bag. The good: It’s great to hear a range...
View Articlebook review: Confronting Postmaternal Thinking: Feminism, Memory, and Care
My friend Anna, who blogs at/as The Feminist Librarian, sent me sociologist Julie Stephens’s book Confronting Postmaternal Thinking, I think in part because she didn’t know quite what to make of it and...
View Articlesome recent(ish) reads: The Penderwicks, The Complete Brambly Hedge, Magyk,...
Three short reviews of possible interest to those of you who don’t follow me on Goodreads (a nonfiction parenting book and two pieces of fiction for young people–and those of us who are not so young,...
View Articlebook review: The Radical Doula Guide: A Political Primer
Miriam Zoila Pérez’s The Radical Doula Guide: A Political Primer just came out a few months ago, back in August. I hesitate to call it a book: at 52 pages long, and stapled rather than bound, it’s...
View Articlebook review: Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism...
Cordelia Fine’s 2010 book Delusions of Gender is not just an excellent, smart deconstruction of crap science and crap science-y pop writing, whether in newspapers or in ever-popular Men Are From Mars...
View Articlerereading Little House in the Big Woods: violence against children
I recently finished reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic Little House in the Big Woods (1932). Like so many people–and by people I pretty much mean women–I have fond memories of the Little House...
View Articlesome recent(ish) reads: Seraphina, Anna Hibiscus, Charmed Life, & Mairelon...
For those of you who don’t follow me on Goodreads, four short reviews of books for young people (and the rest of us, too!): Seraphina, Rachel Hartman This is one of those nice big books that I’d just...
View ArticleDid you see me at Bitch Magazine‘s blog? The Mists of Avalon, feminism, &...
My first post at Bitch Magazine‘s blog went up on Friday. Check it out — it tells the tale of my youthful love affair with the classic Arthurian fantasy The Mists of Avalon. Bonus points for mentioning...
View Articlebook review: Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of...
Sandra Steingraber is a scientist, poet, cancer survivor, and mother who wrote the hands-down best book about pregnancy in existence, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. How’s that for...
View Articlea boy reading girl books: Rainbow Magic Fairies, gender, and our family
Check out my new post at Bitch, about Noah’s enthusiasm for the Rainbow Magic Fairy books. In this world, only girls get to have fairy adventures—or be fairies. This troubling fact has not escaped my...
View Articlebook review: The Truth behind the Mommy Wars
You might expect an eight-year-old book about the “mommy wars” to feel dated and out-of-touch. But Miriam Peskowitz’s 2005 The Truth behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother?...
View Articlesome recent(ish) reads: This Side of Magic, The Lives of Christopher Chant, &...
For those of you who don’t follow me on Goodreads, three short reviews of books for young people (and the rest of us, too!): This Side of Magic (Debbie Dadey) A great beginning for a series of short...
View Articlebeyond the target audience: enjoying The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on...
Noah and I are a big fan of Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks series. This is a little odd, since I strongly suspect that these novels’ typical reader is a middle-school-aged girl. Why do I suspect these...
View Articlebook review: The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls
Oh, people, why did I only randomly–and recently–happen across sociologist Emily W. Kane’s 2012 book The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls? It’s awesome, and well worth...
View Articlebook review: Sam Thomas, The Midwife’s Tale
[A guest post by my husband Eric, who seems an appropriate reviewer for a historical mystery novel about midwives ... since he's a mystery-loving historian who caught both our babies at...
View Articlesome recent(ish) reads: The Mysterious Howling, Arabel’s Raven, The Ordinary...
For those of you who don’t follow me on Goodreads, four short reviews of books for young people (and the rest of us, too!): Maryrose Wood, The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton...
View Articlebook review: The Mother’s Guide to Sex: Enjoying Your Sexuality through All...
If you previously counted on having sex whenever the whim hit you, the constraints [of parenting] on your time and energy may short-circuit your libido. […] Once you’re a parent, you can no longer...
View Articleguest post: The Ordinary Princess Is the Best Thing Ever
Carrie Murphy is a poet, freelance writer and birth doula. It’s no secret that girls love princesses. I loved them too. I love them still. I loved a princess in a book that taught me that paradise is a...
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