A Mama's Rant

What banned books are you planning to read this week?

Happy Banned Books Week, dear readers! I hope you're participating in fighting censorship by reading a banned book. (To learn more, check out my post Happy Banned Books Week 2007 at My Readable Feast.)

From my local library I've reserved The Chocolate War for myself and for the kids, And Tango Makes Three about two "gay" penguins at the Central Park Zoo who adopted a fertilized egg, and successfully hatched and raised the chick.

Here's a list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000. What banned books are your favorites?

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Last day to win Disney Princess Enchanted Tales

Today is the last day to win a copy of Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams.

You have until midnight to enter my contest. It's easy, it's free and you don't have to have a blog!

To find out how to win the DVD, click here.

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Writing opportunity over at the MotherVerse Blog

When I started blogging, I wrote for over at DotMoms until I became too busy trying to start a charter school in my area. It was my first experience in writing for a group blog and an editor. Working with Editor Julie Moos (from Mom in the Mirror) was wonderful since good editors inspire you to fine tune your craft.

If you're looking for a similar experience and/or to post your work at an online magazine, check out the MotherVerse Blog: mothering out loud. The blog is a collaborative of seven mama writers and regular guest bloggers from across the US and world. They also publish special content from MotherVerse Magazine.

Melanie Mayo-Laakso, Editor-in-Chief MotherVerse: A Journal of Contemporary Motherhood, emailed me that the MotherVerse Blog has just launched their Be Heard! Campaign allowing mothers from across the globe to submit a short work about their lives to the blog for publication. (You don't have to be a blogger, just willing to write about motherhood.)

This is a great opportunity for beginning freelance writers to get some online clips. So send them a short (500 words or less) statement on what it is like to mother in your corner of the globe. They want to hear what you’re thinking about, what you’ve been working on, how the heck you make it day to day, what you love, what you don’t, and what you think the world needs to hear. It doesn’t have to be spectacular, just honest and written by you. (See their Be Heard! submission page for all the details. If you're interested in getting your stories in their magazine, go to their magazine submission page.)

Let me know if you plan to submit a story by commenting below!

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Win Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams

The folks at Special Ops Media sent me a copy of Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams. Since this is Boo Girl's type of video, I gave it to her to watch with her Nana one night, and her brother the next.

Frankly, the Disney Princess stuff bothers my feminist-learning self, but the reviews from my family were glowing. Nana said it had a good message about believing in yourself. Boo said it was about never giving up and to keep trying - something she's been repeating a lot lately. Even Monkey Boy enjoyed it.

The little bit I watched looked up to typical Disney standards - good animation and pleasant songs. I was releaved that the stories weren't about getting the prince to like you. Instead, it was about helping family and friends and overcoming obstacles. Good stuff.

For more information on Disney Princess Enchanted Tales - Follow Your Dreams:

• Official Enchanted Tales site
• Four Minute Sneak peek
• Music Video: Jasmine Peacock Princess

So dear reader, I have an extra copy to give to you! Click below to see how to win.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Needs SAHM Stories

I always like to pass these writing notices along to my fellow mommy bloggers, SAHM readers, and WAHM writers. This comes from the Chicken Soup for the Soul people.

What a busy life a Stay At Home Mom leads! She has so many different jobs that it is difficult to keep track of them all: cook, housekeeper, teacher, laundress, facilities manager, chauffeur, psychologist and nurse are just some of the many jobs that she is required to perform. And she is on call twenty four hours a day. Some days she seems to get everything done and feels like a master-performer, and other days, well, she feels like a bumbling clown!

Chicken Soup for the Stay At Home Mom's Soul will share the trials and tribulations, the happiness and laughs, and the heartwarming and touching moments of being a Stay At Home Mom.

Topics will include but not be limited to:

A Mother's Love
Insight and Lessons
On Gratitude
On Sharing and Giving
Through the Eyes of a Child
Overcoming Obstacles
Letting Go
Time for Me

2 Mommy Lit Recommendations

What's mommy lit? It's a story written from the perspective of a mother. (CityMama has a great take on The Mommy Lit Formula while Amazon.com features a Best of Mommy Lit list by K. Freeman.)

Two mommy lit novels that have appeared on my doorstep courtesy of their publishers are Mommy Tracked and Odd Mom Out.

Mommy Tracked

By Whitney Gaskell, Mommy Tracked fits the mommy lit formula to a T. One mom is a go-getter lawyer with a unhappy stay-at-home husband. Another is a gorgeous and talented restaurant critic and single mom with a rotten ex-husband who nearly accidently kills her son. Another is new mom and freelance writer with a clueless husband. And there's the requisit fat girl in the group who's happy with being a mom but very unhappy and obsessed about her weight.

Mommy Tracked is not a bad book, just not a very original one. Of course there's all-too-tidy ending when the men finally get a clue and the women realize how to balance love, home and career. Still, there are some funny bits like the sexpert teaching the "Moms Coming Together" club how to give good blowjobs that'll make you laugh.

Odd Mom Out

By Jane Porter, Odd Mom Out is a story about single mom and advertising professional Marta who moves from NYC to Seattle to raise her 10-year-old daughter. She's a combat boot wearing, Harley mama and doesn't fit in with pearl necklace, high heels, and twin set crowd - much to her daughter's chagrin.

I can relate to Marta a little even though she's gorgeous, thin and uber talented. I too am running a business out of my home and am very fond of my cowboy boots and Doc Marten's. I have a Harley in the garage (my husband's) and likewise am a member of the Sandwich Generation (though my mom and mother-in-law are in terrific health).

But how I wished she told her daughter to can it about fitting in, and to stop being so superficial. There is no reason that a 10-year-old should be dictating what a mom wears or who she hangs out with even if it does provide a good plot device. But like all good mommy lit, Odd Mom Out ends with the daughter thinking her mom's one cool lady and Marta getting the guy and the big advertising account.

We all could use a happy ending and a few smiles, so check out both Odd Mom Out and Mommy Tracked. 

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2 Chick Lit Recommendations

My friend Karen is the type of gal who admittedly judges books by their covers. If the outside of the book is attractive, she'll probably buy it. Since she's leaving for the UK this week and needed some books for the plane, I brought her a couple of chick lit novels that are as appealing on the inside as they are on the outside.

History Lesson for Girls

The most serious of these four is History Lesson for Girls by Aurelie Sheehan. It's a coming-of-age story set in 1970s complete with drugs, sex, and hippies vs. new agers. Alison, who's 13 and has scoliosis, moves to a new town with her artsy parents. She becomes friends with one of the popular girls, Kate, whose family life is out of control. Her dad is a New Age guru with infidelity and alcohol issues, and her mom is on drugs. Both girls share a love of horseback riding and help each other cope with households where the kids are more grown up than the parents.

History Lesson for Girls reminds me of John Updike's Rabbit Redux meets Judy Blume's Deenie with a Bridge to Terabithia ending. It's an accurate portrait of the out-of-control '70s from a teen's perspective - all at once confusing, sad and hopeful.

Forget About It

Do you have those days when your life sucks so bad that you wished you could begin from scratch? Well, that's just what happens to Jordan - twice! - in Forget About It by Caprice Crane. Jordan runs into a car with her bicycle and decides on the way to the hospital to fake amnesia and reinvent herself. She begins to believe her "new" personality, too and gains confidence. She dumps her lousy boyfriend, gets a promotion at work, stands up to her rotten family, and gets a great boyfriend. Then the whole thing unravels when she really does get amnesia.

I thought Forget About It was a real hoot since idea of a "life do-over" appealed to me. Don't you have things you wish you could do in live...or maybe not at all? I loved Jordan's friends and wanted to hang out with them, too. I was also shocked at how over-the-top rotten Jordan's mom, sister and boyfriend were, and really felt an urge to smack 'em.

The ending was a slight disappointment - while hopelessly romantic, it was a bit too fairytale-ish. Still, Forget About It is an enjoyable, entertaining and funny read - perfect while traveling or just getting away mentally from kids or the office for awhile.

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9/11: A remembrance

I was born in NYC and grew up in NJ. I was in Colorado on 09/11/2001 watching the TODAY show when the planes hit. It still brings tears to my eyes and leaves me with an empty feeling. It was the start of a new way of thinking about how unsafe our world truly was.

I always thought Bruce Springsteen's The Rising -both the album and the actual song - expressed the sorrow, fears, and emotions of 9/11 the best. Leave it to a boy from the Jersey Shore .

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Does School Start Too Early? Actually, It Doesn't Start Early Enough

Remember when the Labor Day Jerry Lewis Telethon meant that summer was over and school was starting? That's not the case here in Colorado. This year school started in mid-August because state academic testing is now earlier in the year. Unfortunately, this meant many kids were sweltering in schools without air conditioning. (Nathan's charter school has AC as does Lucie's preschool.)

Earlier this month, a Rocky Mountain News editorial came out stating that school shouldn't start until after Labor Day. They argued that school districts are spending millions of dollars to retrofit older buildings with AC. Instead, they want capital expenditures to be used on instruction.

That's very nice, but it's not based in reality. The bottom line is that parents would like school to start even earlier. In fact, July 5th looks really good to us because our kids are driving us crazy!

Mom, I'm Bored!

After an extremely challenging summer, I'm warming up to the idea of year-round school. Not only would it prevent the dreaded "summer slide" when heat combined with pool chlorine causes kids' brains to atrophy and forget everything they've ever learned. But it would make us a parents oh so much happier.

This summer, we were busy with playdates, karate, park dates, summer school, camping, trips to the movies, fishing, golf, baseball, and speech therapy. Sheer madness! No matter how busy our schedule, Nathan was bored, bored, bored. TV, computer games, homework, books, and a grandmother who plays a thousand board games in a row wasn't enough to stop him from picking fights with his sister, wrecking the house, or coming up to me every 10 minutes asking, "What are we going to do next?"

Now that school has started, Nathan and Lucie are much happier and their behavior has improved. They're excited to be surrounded by friends and teachers who stimulate and challenge them. While they're just as busy with extra-curricular activities like karate and chess club, our days have a more predictable rhythm. An since Nathan and Lucie aren't together most of the day, they miss each other and fight less.

Have you taken the Blogging Mothers Survey Yet?

Judith Stadtman Tucker, the editor of The Mothers Movement Online, is conducting a blogging mothers survey to help her write a foreword for a new anthology on maternal blogging. (Can't wait to read her book!)

She writes:

I'm looking for feedback from members of the "momosphere" about the quality of your blogging experience. I've created an online survey and would be extremely grateful if you would (a) take a few minutes to complete the survey, and (b) share the survey link with other mother bloggers in your virtual and real-world communities.

Your blog need not be related to motherhood or parenting to participate in the survey -- if you're a mother who blogs (or a former mother-blogger), I'd like to hear from you! The survey will be open for one month (August 15 to September 15, 2007), or until I receive the maximum number of responses (1,000). Many of the questions have yes/no answers. Several involve selecting one or more choices from a longer list of options. Nearly all questions may be skipped. The survey is also set up so you can return to it if you are not able to complete it in one session.

Judy will be sharing a summary of the survey results with the motherhood blogging community when the final responses have been collected.

I took the survey just now and there's only one problem with it. The survey assumes you only have one blog. For many of us "moms who blog" that's hardly the case, though I don't think most mom bloggers write for as many blogs as I do. (Some write for more!)

So are you going to take the blogging mothers survey?

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