Memorable autobiographical essays capturing the service of motherhood with candor, humor, and grace.
A memoir focuses on motherhood and life as a military spouse.
Molinari, a mother of three and wife of a naval intelligence officer, offers wit and wisdom in her book. Her husband, Francis, now retired, served on an anti-terrorism task force, and his career included deployments around the world. As a result, the family lived in Germany, Florida, and Rhode Island. The author shouldered the parenting duties alone during Francis’ yearlong deployment in Djibouti. In addition to the typical tasks of a stay-at-home mom, Molinari organized a rigorous calendar of therapies and monitored play dates for her son, Hayden, who was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. To relieve stress, the author began writing. The lively and resonant memoir builds on her work as a columnist and blogger. She compares the book to a sitcom with a key distinction: “Unlike sitcoms…the meaning in my reality is not always clear. It often gets muddled with the trivial, mundane, and chaotic details in my daily routine.” Molinari captures visiting the orthodontist, tackling taxes, and working out as brief episodes. There are essays about chores, milestones, and Christmas. In an essay about a summer vacation with her extended family, “personal secrets were inevitably revealed,” the author writes. Anti-fungal ointments, heavy mayonnaise, and large undergarments emerge: “Admittedly, my Jockeys ‘For Her’ were ample enough to fold over several times.” Readers will relish Molinari’s self-deprecating anecdotes about aging, marriage, and anxiety. The volume includes memorable one-liners (“I’ve got more culture in my upturned pinkie than you’d get from a case of Chobani”) as well as lessons on hard work and gratitude. Readers may wish for more about Hayden’s childhood years. The author writes consistently about his younger sisters as children while Hayden emerges from his diagnosis as a teen. (He is now an engineer.) With just glimpses of his progress, readers will likely be unable to appreciate his significant strides. Tonally, though, the details of Hayden’s journey are perhaps best left for another book. In this one, there is a palpable sense of wonder for everything from a dog’s shedding to parenthood: “It’s an incredible privilege to watch a human being grow.”
Memorable autobiographical essays capturing the service of motherhood with candor, humor, and grace.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-934617-54-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Elva Resa Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
