Taitz, a columnist for Child magazine, offers an uneven collection of short essays loosely linked by the theme of learning both to resist the hype that modern parents are bombarded with and to trust your own instincts in raising your children. The author aims her book at a rarefied audience: mostly urban (primarily Manhattan) women, affluent, well educated, professionally accomplished—but reduced to utter insecurity by their love of their babies and their fear of doing the wrong thing. Into the breach stampede the Experts, who recognize rich possibilities in such naked fear and ambition. It begins with the baby nurses who demand to be picked up in limos and whose first words on entering the apartment are, ``What's for dinner?'' It continues with the educational-toy-of-the-month clubs; the newsletters that promise to teach your child the ``right'' values with minimal involvement on your part (phew!); the gurus of discipline and limit-setting, whose seminars all around town are constantly packed with mothers who have made parenting a replacement for their former hard-driving careers; the nursery- school admissions applications (``Has your child asked the meaning of abstract words such as `peace,' `justice' and `infinity'?'')...and on and on. In that vast territory reputedly known to media execs in L.A. and N.Y.C. as ``the flyover,'' it is difficult to imagine most of these pieces being received with anything other than bemusement and incredulity. Taitz's descriptions of her own children and her feelings for them, however, would play anywhere—they are touching, sincere, endearingly besotted in a way all mothers will recognize.
Pub Date: April 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-10588-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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