YOGA PANT NATION

Jen Dixon is now a caregiving grandma, a classroom parent, a PTA fundraiser, and a spin instructor—Stay in the saddle, riders!

We met the irresistibly snarky Jen as a kindergarten parent in Gelman's debut, Class Mom (2017), and caught up with her in third grade in You've Been Volunteered (2019). As our 53-year-old heroine's son enters fifth grade, Gelman's comic style has gotten a wee bit cramped—for one thing, she's already made a lot of the possible jokes about riding herd on the other parents, but also the mores of 2021 have taken some of the teeth out of her comedy. She can still do jokes about spelt-spirulina pretzels and gluten-free cookies; when Jen takes care of her daughter Viv's out-of-wedlock 2-year-old three days a week, she learns that "everything I did for [Viv] as a child has caused adult-onset you-name-it," resulting in a "parenting style that can best be described as a cross between Mary Poppins and the surgeon general." On the other hand, great care must be taken not to offend anyone, removing a lot of comic potential. Gelman confesses in her acknowledgments that her editor had "the unfortunate job of telling me over and over again, 'You can't say things like that anymore.' " Honestly, you can tell, though the struggle to tamp down the inappropriate didn't quite succeed in this amusing sentence: "My parents' possible dementia is nothing to laugh about, but the people in the basement have become a scapegoat for everything from who ate the last cookie to who killed JonBenét Ramsey." What's added to fill the void is way, way too much spin class. Do Gelman's readers really want to hear so much about Jen's vigorous exercise program, including 6:30 p.m. yoga classes and insights like "I have discovered that yoga is a great counter-workout to spinning, which has a tendency to tighten up my legs and hip flexors"? Let's hope that middle school gives Jen more room to breathe.

Not the strongest of the series.