The Book Babes

MOMMIE DEAREST, PLEASE NOTE

FROM ELLEN: Here's a stat for you: According to Ann Hulbert in her book "Raising America," in 1997 there were five times as many books about parenting being published than were published in 1975. If true, this seems to cut a couple of ways: Assuming that these books address a real need, either kids are more out of control, parents are more insecure, or that fragile unit we call the family has come under siege. I'd guess it's a mixture of all three.

As a veteran of the child-raising wars, I can attest to the one thing you learn from the experience: humility. That's not the driving force behind "The Seventeen Traditions," Ralph Nader's reminiscence about his parents and how they raised him, but it's easy to see why: Nader has never faced the awesome task of raising children himself. Still, the book is a classic for anyone pondering how to raise their child or children with the drive, discipline and compassion that is a Triple Crown formula for a successful life in the largest sense. (I notice in Robert Alter's new translation "The Book of Psalms," he makes the point that "the good life was imagined not in terms of wealth, but of sufficiency -- a man's enjoying the fruit of his own labor." I think Jesus followed up on this with something about the eye of a camel...)

It's hard to take the larger view of parenting when you're down in the trenches. This is why books like Nader's are important antidotes to our sped-up, consumerist culture, and another one that I've been reading is "The Mystery of the Child," by religion scholar Martin E. Marty. If you've got an allergy to footnotes, this may not be the book for you. And if religion turns you off, Marty may not be your cup of tea, either.

But, even when it's couched in a Christian context, the message is easy to understand and has universal application: Quit focusing on the ways to keep a child from running off the rails, he says. Think in terms of guiding rather than controlling. In Marty's view, having a "childlike mind" is a good thing, and the pity is that so few of us retain our "childish" sense of wonder when we become adults. Amen to that!

GRIPE OF THE MONTH

Listeners to our radio show may have noticed a new feature that suits the Book Babes' agenda of digging around behind the scenes of publishing and the world of the literati. We call it "Gripe of the Month," a.k.a., "What People Talk About When They Talk About Books, Authors, Editors, Publishers, Agents and the Inadequate Media Coverage of All Forementioned." We inaugurated this feature with a gripe Ellen picked up from West Coast author Lisa See during her media tour for her latest novel, "Peony in Love." Having logged more than a few thousand miles promoting the book, Lisa remarked on the great turnouts she received in the Heartland, but how much more impressed her publisher was with the audiences who attended her book signings around New York. To so many in the book publishing biz, she remarked, if it doesn't happen in Manhattan, it doesn't happen. See's plaint had to do with how West Coast writers (and, by implication, other regional wordsmiths) are slogging uphill to prove themselves to the New York crowd. Of course, this is not new -- Wallace Stegner made the same point decades ago while he was teachiing at some obscure Bay area university called Stanford.

Times have changed, and there's more recognition for all the good things going on in the hinterlands. But book publishing is still a New York-centric enterprise. So God bless the National Book Critics Circle: in a bid to bust out as a truly national organization, the group is holding a board meeting outside New York for the first time since it was formed more than 30 years ago. The NBCC will be holding public events January 10 and 11 (and, we assume, leaving a piece of its heart) in San Francisco.

But there are so many more gripes to be heard. The Book Babes would love to hear yours -- if, of course, it has anything to do with the subject at hand -- so please write us here with your ideas.

Meanwhile, the next Gripe of the Month can be heard on the Book Babes radio show during Thanksgiving week: This month the Babes address recent remarks by Scottish author Daniel Kalder, rapping the knuckles of our very own Book TV. Patriotic Americans -- not to mention everyone else who cares about books and literature! -- please join us for our response at wmnf.org, starting at 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 21.