>I still remember the day my principal asked to read the final project for my Masters program. She told me how impressed she was and how much she had loved reading it. I glanced around me to make sure no one was within earshot in the school hallway and then confided, “I enjoyed the research.” She laughed out loud and said, “I knew you would!”

When Mothertalk offered me a chance to read and review Mama PhD, I checked my mailbox eagerly for the advance copy. I knew I could share experiences with the professorial moms with essays in this collection, even though my “campus” is a fourth grade classroom.

Mama, PhD is not gender neutral, nor should it be. The women represented in this collection of essays have faced challenges because of their gender: because they were pregnant, because they were breastfeeding, because they were chief caregivers for their babies and children. The university teaching life is not designed for adaptations and accommodations. Its structure is strict, based on goals and requirements that in many cases were set up decades ago with men in mind.

Four sections sort the essays by focus and theme. “The Conversation” discusses a common dilemma: to have or not to have children. Essays in “That Mommy Thing” gather around balancing motherhood and work, specifically academic work. Part three, “Recovering Academic”, is the shortest of the four with stories of those who have left the fold, while “Momifesto” finishes the book.

The contributors to Mama, PhD write with clarity and passion. Essays are easy to follow, and despite (or perhaps due to) the advanced degrees of the writers, easy to understand. Emotions are never far below the surface; readers will feel the pain and the divisiveness the writers encounter.

The collection of essays relates the personal stories underlying the statistics: families affected by discrimination and bias. This makes reading Mama PhD both difficult and rewarding. I felt for the moms who couldn’t bend their families to meet academia’s rigidity, and I cheered for those who could bend academia to work for their families. I commiserated with those who struggled to find balance and ultimately gave up their careers for their families or decided not to have children in order to maintain their academic careers. Even as I identified with each writer, I found myself glad to be in K-12 public education rather than a higher level of teaching. Union representation helps avoid some of the pitfalls these mothers suffered. I get recognition when I publish, but the publish or perish pressure isn’t in my job description. Teaching effectively can be my focus and my sole accomplishment.

I hope that Mama, PhD will spread the word through the bastions of higher education: policies that marginalize women also marginalize our children, our future, and our present. The glass ceiling is cracking in the business world; the marble ceiling has shattered, but gender equity hasn’t cracked the ivory tower yet.

I received an advance copy of this book to review it for Mothertalk. I do not plan to keep it; I know it’ll make the rounds of my colleagues at school!

>Daniel has no last name. He has no family, either; he creates his own family and friends with his highly developed magical imagination. He has amazing powers, outrageous intelligence, and a mission to avenge his parents’ violent deaths.

It’s too bad all of this doesn’t lead to a better story.

Daniel X is disappointing. James Patterson is a well-known author for adults, a creator of best-selling novels, a regular on Top Ten Lists. What happened here? The dramatic opening sets up the motivation and Daniel’s uniqueness, but after that – well, not much. The pacing lacks flow, connections are choppy, the villian was predictable, and frankly, I found it dull.

That’s ironic because Patterson’s marketing (and oh, he is all about marketing) is based on boys supposedly having very little interest in reading because they find books boring and “can’t get into the stories.”

Patterson needs to meet some of the boys I’ve met while teaching fourth through sixth grade. He needs to meet the boy who checked out Eragon from the library – for me! “Mrs. Teacher, you need to read this now because the sequel is coming out soon and it’s awesome.” How about the boy who kept hiding books in his lap so he could keep reading through math class? No, his subterfuge didn’t work. He still had to learn long division, but I let him read as soon as his homework was done. Then there was the boy who was so wrapped up in Robinson Crusoe that he forgot to go to science class. Tell me he wasn’t into the story, and I’ll pop a quiz on you so fast your head will spin. Would you like to hear about the boys who eagerly read the later books in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s collection? They wanted to find out more about Almanzo from Farmer Boy and learn whether his older brother Royal moved west with him.

Patterson suggests something teachers and librarians already know: give them books they’ll love.

I suggest: Give them Gary Paulsen. Christopher Paul Curtis. Jerry Spinelli. Betsy Byars. Cornelia Funke. Gordon Korman. Robert Louis Stevenson. C. S. Lewis. Matt Christopher’s sports collections, including fiction and biographies. And continue to recommend J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Boys and girls alike lose themselves in the complex and fascinating world of the boy wizard.

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X may attract a few readers who like slimey aliens and big guns and a weak, unstructured story. I don’t plan to recommend it.

I received a free copy of this book in order to review it for MotherTalk. I plan to donate it to the middle school library. Despite my dislike for the story, I do not believe in censorship. Some kids will like it; it’ll be on the shelf for them.