parenting By Julianne Smith

Spring has sprung, and keeping kids on task with the warmer weather is a bit of explains feelings about becoming a blended
a challenge. Compared to the buoyant return of outdoor pursuits such as bike rides to the family, which stretch from anticipation to
ice cream shop, baseball games, and spring planting, the titles reviewed in this issue are a rage to fear. It captures the emotions of chil-
bit heavy, tackling goliaths such as stepfamilies, hospitalized children, religion for secular dren young and grown, in addition to the
families, and baby poop. Ylonda Gault Caviness provides some comic relief with her witty precarious positions of the stepparents them-
memoir, Child, Please, and despite the downer subject of divorce and separation, the esteemed selves. VERDICT While step relationships
­Penelope Leach returns with an excellent When Parents Part. Finally, in keeping with the can be rife with resentment and animosity,
return of spring, the beloved duo Robert and William Sears offer a full-length yet readable the writers here illustrate how families can
text on all things allergy. Pollen sufferers take note! grow together and give hope for any reader
unsure of how to navigate a new familial
structure.

Caviness, Ylonda Gault. Child, Please: How

The effects of divorce; how parents can treat allergies and answer questions about religion
Ankowski, Amber & Andy Ankowski.
Think Like a Baby: 33 Simple Research
Experiments You Can Do at Home To
Better Understand Your Child’s Developing
Mind. Chicago Review. 2015. 224p. ISBN
9781613730638. pap. $16.95; ebk. ISBN
9781613730669. CHILD REARING
Designed to help parents understand how a
child’s mind develops, this latest book on the
topic of experimenting on baby comes from
“the doctor and the dad” team of devel-
opmental psychologist Amber and techni-
cal writer Andy Ankowski, parents of two
children. Their investigations are divided
into age categories and include ability tests
such as problem solving, language develop-
ment, motor skills, and memory. Using in-
formation on everything from mobile place-
Julianne Smith received her BA in English
and her MS in Information from the
University of Michigan. She has been a
librarian for over 20 years and reviewing for
LJ for nearly ten. She currently serves as the
Acquisitions Manager, Ypsilanti District
Library, MI. Parenting consumes much of her
time outside of work, and it’s a good thing she
writes this column because her twins give her a
run for her money on a daily basis
ment to scrambled faces, the scientifically
inclined parent can track baby’s progress by
implementing the authors’ “tips to help your
child” and “tips to help yourself.” ­VERDICT
The Ankowskis have a f lip style that is
meant to be humorous but often misses the
mark. Despite that, this work on under-
standing cognitive development is a valuable
addition to the parenting literature. Librar-
ies should also consider Shaun G ­ allagher’s
­Experimenting with Babies.
Blended: Writers on the Stepfamily
Experience. Seal. 2015. 256p. ed. by
Samantha Waltz. ISBN 9781580055574. pap.
$16. CHILD REARING
With over 95 million adults involved in
a step relationship of some variety, editor
Waltz (Parenting: Four Patterns in Childrearing)
taps a niche with this collection of 30 essays
that share the highs, lows, fears, and growth
that blended families experience over time.
Readers may recognize some contributors,
such as authors Marge Piercy and Kerry
­Cohen, but other lesser-known names offer
just as much richness and variety of experi-
ence. Comprised of five parts—“Coming
Together,” “Self-Discovery,” “Evolution,”
“Acceptance,” and “Reflections”—the book
Mama’s Old-School Lessons Helped Me
Check Myself Before I Wrecked Myself.
Tarcher. 2015. 320p. ISBN 9780399169960.
$25.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698158436. CHILD
REARING
In her humorous memoir about birthing
and raising three children, iVillage.com
writer Caviness explores parenting styles
in today’s climate of hypervigilancy, black
culture, white culture, and her mama’s old-
school methods, which turned out to be
pretty good in the end. Even though, she
writes, “Every black person on the face of
the earth believes that…white kids are born
with a license to run all over their parents,”
she confesses to secretly peeling the skin off
of peas to make them easier for her baby to
digest. That was baby number one. After
babies two and three arrived, Caviness was
so exhausted that she finally took heed of
her mother’s warning that “if you give them
everything they want, there’ll be nothing
left of you.” VERDICT Full of zippy dialog,
laugh-out-loud cultural exchanges, and
wisecracking truths, this title is a fresh take
on the parenting memoir through the eyes
of a working mother teetering among ad-
vice, cultures, styles, and instinct.
.Forgan, James W. & Mary Anne Richey.
The Impulsive, Disorganized Child:
Solutions for Parenting Kids with Executive
Functioning Difficulties. Prufrock Pr. 2015.
274p. ISBN 9781618214010. pap. $17.95;
ebk. ISBN 9781618214034. CHILD REARING
If you have a child with executive function-
ing issues, you probably look just like the kid
on this book’s cover (exasperated). While
commonly diagnosed with attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other
learning disabilities, kids with organizational
problems are not necessarily “on the spec-
trum,” and there are many things we can do
to help them foster important skills. School

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