Mother on Fire by Sandra Tsing Loh

Have you spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about where your child will go to kindergarten? Sandra Tsing Loh dedicates a year of her life to working out that problem. Reading this book will make you grateful for the choices you have and that you don’t live in LA. Or, at least that is how I felt.

The author’s tumultuous year includes being fired from NPR for saying an obscenity on air as well as trying to get her daughter into various schools. She almost gets her daughter into a private, religious school, but then the school decides her daughter should do another year of preschool. She lucks into a very exclusive school that costs more than $20,000 a year and deals with that stress of deciding whether to do that. And, of course, there is a confusing lottery system to get into magnet schools as well as the public school possibility located three blocks from their house.

This memoir is funny, mainly because the author lets you in her head. Loh’s husband is delegated to be in charge of finding a kindergarten. However, when she finds a preschool flier sitting in the van for an informational meeting that night she springs into action. The informational meeting, pre-registration required, is directly after the Spring Fund-Raising Committee meeting, both of which the same person happens to be directing. Here’s how Loh finagles her way into the meeting:

" 'Hey Joan! I’m just leaving twenty dollars for our two Spring Fund-Raising Jamboree tickets and—Hey is there still room to volunteer on the committee? The fund-raising committee! Love to be on that!'
'YOU want to be on the committee?' Joan’s glazed look turns into one of incredulity.
Feeling a little stung to be found out, here I actually attempt to rewrite—or at least re-interpret—my conspicuously non-committee-volunteering-mother history, all in one mangled run-on sentence. I fabricate something about a big writing deadline I have had, for several years, which all at once I am abruptly clear of, and so of course now will return to my original plan of TOTAL CO-OP PRESCHOOL INVOLVEMENT."

So, Loh, after all the extra volunteering efforts, ends up at the meeting where frantic parents discuss all the drawbacks of the LA public schools. This does not help her peace of mind.

Besides the kindergarten issues, the author has a meltdown while giving what is supposed to be an inspiring talk to Marymount College students. She is the college writer in residence, but the students are surprised to hear that she is not the huge success they imagine.

“ 'Each of the books I’ve published were at some point deemed a failure by some twenty-two-year-old publicist in New York named Jennifer. They were all named Jennifer. All my Jennifers —they’re a bit like my discarded wives. My Jennifers were all graduates of Brown, they deserved so much better than me as an author, they had such beautiful hair, beautiful educations… They’d been groomed to have much bigger successes. But I and my incorrigably midlist work destroyed them.
Somewhere, in some hip bar in Manhattan, are my Jennifers, about thirty-three now, still cutting great figures in the dark, but with hard lines around their mouths. It is my career that put them there.' "

You can imagine how her somewhat bitter comments go over with enthusiastic twenty-year-olds.

Loh has a somewhat manic style with lots of exclamation points and words in all caps. She is not shy about her takes on her friends, her Chinese father, and her husband among others. She adds in crazy hand drawn graphs and timelines. Mother on Fire is subtitled A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting. It is a good, quick read and, since I can’t imagine any search for kindergarten being more dramatic, will make you feel more relaxed about any upcoming school decisions you may have.

Mystery Author Ian Rankin

The latest, and said to be last book, in the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin is Exit Music. Rankin’s books generally feature a determined detective (Rebus), are fast-paced, and the mysteries convoluted enough to keep me guessing. In Exit Music Rebus has only days to retirement and ends up embroiled in a case involving a dead Russian poet. The implication is that any other retiring police officer would let this slide and leave it to his partner to solve, but Rebus is different. He has spent his entire life and most of his waking hours dedicated to his job, or at least drinking enough so that he can’t think about his job, and this last case is no different.

By my count there are about 19 books featuring John Rebus. I happened upon this series late, but have read four or so of the most recent books. It seems readily easy to jump into the series anywhere. I did read one of the first books in the series, Hide and Seek, and found that Rebus has always had trouble with women, alcohol, and authority. So far, my favorite book in the series is The Falls, which involves a case where tiny dolls in coffins are left at crime scenes. It is also the only book that I’ve read so far in which Rebus has a moderately successful romance.

Check out Ian Rankin’s website for a list of all the Inspector Rebus novels. I hope that Ian Rankin will continue this series set in Edinburgh, possibly with a focus on Rebus’s equally interesting partner, Siobhan Clarke.

Confident Parents Remarkable Kids by Bonnie Harris

Bonnie Harris, author of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons and What You Can Do About It, had a new book come out in September. Confident Parents Remarkable Kids is subtitled 8 Principles for Raising Kids You’ll Love to Live With. Having read both of her books, I feel a major benefit when reading a Bonnie Harris book is the encouragement to stop and assess some of your parenting actions: Are you parenting the way that you want or in the moment at a point of frustration?

Confident Parents Remarkable Kids is laid out with each of the first eight chapters focused on one of the eight principles. The first principle, for example, is My Child Wants to Be Successful. Real life examples from Harris’s classes are included in each chapter along with detailed explanations of the particular principle. Each chapter has a summary of the main ideas and some practice exercises. In the second part of the book she applies the principles to daily life and touches on common issues that parents have with their children such as the morning rush, sibling rivalry, or bedtime. I appreciated some of very specific examples, including an example of how to deal with e-mail bullying.

Bonnie Harris graciously agreed to answer a few questions over e-mail and her answers give insight into her new book, her passion for working with parents, and her thoughtfulness.

What are the important differences between your new book and When Your Kids Push Your Buttons?
Bonnie Harris: Buttons raises the awareness of the assumptions we make when our children behave in ways we don't like. Those assumptions often spin out of control and lead us to react in ineffective or damaging ways. Buttons presents ways to look at those assumptions and reframe them to ones that present a different and much more helpful perspective. The eight principles in Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids are those new assumptions or perceptions. Each of the principles offers a view of our children that leads us to compassion, encouragement, appropriate expectations, clarity of limits, responsibility, and good boundaries.

What kind of parent do you hope will pick up your book?
BH: I want parents who are frustrated with the old ways and don't want to bring their children up that way, who get frustrated and feel guilty about the reactions they find themselves in, who feel they have tried everything and nothing works, who are open to change because the old just hasn't worked, who are not afraid to swim against the tide, who are doing fine but just want to know all there is about the most important job there is. Mainly any parent who is looking and searching for better ways. Although the stories in the new book are of children toddler to twelve, the principles hold true for any aged child.

Why or how did you start writing these parenting books?
BH: I had been teaching parent education for a number of years. My classes, which I still teach with many of the same techniques found in the new book, brought out some problems in parenting that posed an interesting question to me. Why weren't many parents able to put these methods into practice? It finally dawned on me that they were getting their buttons pushed and in that space couldn't respond positively. I began teaching a class called Defusing Your Buttons to get to the bottom of what goes on with parents when that happens and how to help them. Through many classes and learning from many parents, I developed the buttons approach and the book just had to be written. I had no idea at that time that it would get published. After that book, I wanted very much to get all the principles down so that the combination of the two books (no specific order - depends on the parent) could answer most parenting dilemmas. It is my mission to help parents see that by rejecting the old reward and punishment system and taking on a real relationship with their children, treating them with the respect they want themselves, and parenting who each child is rather than who they want them to be, we can raise stronger human beings who will help heal the planet. To me, parenting is at the core of all non-biological issues of dysfunction in our society.

Is there a story/example in the book that you can particularly recommend for someone skeptical about using logic rather than punishment?
BH: The first story in the book about Kathleen and Jared is one of my favorites. Jared was really dragging his mother down - a very lovely, caring, soft-spoken mother who I just loved working with. Jared is one of those boys that frustrates so many high functioning parents like Kathleen. When a child like Jared pushes a parent to her max over and over, it wears one down and there is little reserve left to be at all effective. When Kathleen got the logic behind what we were working on, she was both willing and able to give it a try. It's very frustrating when parents listen and learn new approaches, but either don't put them into practice or try one or two things which fail and then give it all up. It takes perseverance because we have to be consistent until our children trust us. Often it takes a lot of trial and error. But the logic really paid off here for Jared. He responds so well when his parents see him in that different light - seeing that he is not being a problem, but that he is having a problem. As soon as that compassion enters the picture, relaxation can set in. Jared is still a highly frustrating child, but since his parents have been dealing with him from this new perspective, he is far more manageable and they have many more enjoyable times with him. Those moments build up and he ends up with a much more positive view of himself.

To learn more about Bonnie Harris, her books, or to subscribe to her free newsletter visit www.connectiveparenting.com.

The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea is another writer coming to Bend for The Nature of Words. His book, The Devil’s Highway, was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. It is the true story of a failed attempt by 26 men, referred to as the Wellton 26 in media coverage, to cross from Mexico into the United States in May 2001.

It is a story of the people who try to cross and those who try to stop them. The Border Patrol agents spend their days and nights looking for signs of crossing. “And the dark image of the evil Border Patrol agent dogs every signcutter who goes into the desert in his truck. It’s the tawdry legacy of the human hunt–ill will on all sides. Paranoia. Dread. Loathing. Mexican-American Border Patrol agents are feared even more by the illegals than the gringos, for the Mexicans can only ascribe to them a kind of rabid self-hatred. Still, when the walkers are dying, they pray to be found by the Boys in Green.”

I found this book tough to read. I guess I prefer my hardship tales to be fiction. Urrea includes a rather detailed description of the seven stages of dying of hyperthermia, or what is commonly known as heat stroke. This one short sentence really caught my attention: “In the desert, we are all illegal aliens.” The confusing jurisdiction over this desert area with Border Patrol, Customs, DEA, BLM, and INS as well as military and tribal lands thrown in, was overwhelming. In the end an amazingly poorly organized and badly led attempt to cross into the US ended in tragedy for many families. The author does a remarkable job at getting across the hopes of the men on this journey, and the descriptions of how they were found are distressing.

In this book Urrea mentions two other authors who are also going to be at The Nature of Words. From The Devil’s Highway:
“One writer who has focused on this desert, Craig Childs, tells of a pair of old bullet casings found out there. They were jammed together, and when pried apart, an aged curl of paper fell out. On the paper, someone had written, ‘Was it worth it?’”
“Fifteen hundred walkers a day depart from under the Sasabe sign. The writer Charles Bowden, on a visit to Sasabe in 2003, counted five thousand walkers in one afternoon.”

I would prefer to read more about the high desert near Bend, rather than this brutal desert with all its complications in Arizona.