I get a lot of free parenting books sent to me at the Post-Gazette, some useful (" The Baby Food Bible," "Raising a Bilingual Child," "Why Bad Grades Happen To Good Kids"), some not so much ("Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness).
Today, though, I struck real free-book-gold: Sandra Tsing Loh's new book, "Mother on Fire," (Crown Publishing Group $23.00) finally arrived.
Ms. Tsing Loh, a 40-something parent, performance artist, author, NPR commentator and regular columnist for the Atlantic Monthly, is one of the funniest, smartest writers on what it means to be a mom today. Especially what it means to be a 40-something mother driving a "Cheez-It-encrusted minivan" with flabby upper arms in a city (Los Angeles) where the public schools are mostly terrible, where the Prius-driving parents preach the value of public education but send their kids to an expensive private school, and where, during a year long odyssey to get her own daughter into one, she becomes a passionate activist and advocate for Guavatorina, a local school where most of the kids speak Spanish and qualify for free lunches.
It's quite a journey, one interrupted by musings on the things that really matter to moms: the proliferation of costly skin-care products that don't work; her father's disdain for her life as an artist; and $10 Target pants ("Are they running pants, exercise pants, pajama pants?") that are the ubiquitous Mother of Small Children uniform.
For those of you who want to know more about Sandra Tsing-Loh, check out the Q&A I did with her, here:
I remember this interview so vividly: she made me laugh so hard -- and gasp in recognition with every anecdote -- that I could hardly type.
Posted
Jul 31 2008, 08:47 AM
by
Gretchen McKay