Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

When I discovered that The Honest Toddler:  A Child’s Guide to Parenting existed, I put it on hold without hesitating; bits from it show up on my Facebook feed occasionally, and they always make me laugh.

So did the book.

Make no mistake about that, friends.  Honest Toddler has more than a few laugh-out-loud moments.  (On Survivor:  “Being left to your own devices with a group of strangers who wouldn’t hesitate to steal your last bread crust:  Yep, sounds like a playdate to me.”)  I found, however, that I couldn’t read too much in one sitting; it was far more enjoyable in small bits.  (To be completely honest, I thought it needed to be a tad shorter.  Some of those small bits were trying too hard, and pruning those would have increased its overall impact.)  That didn’t surprise me, though–I often feel that way about this type of book.  My one true criticism has to do with voice.  The author vacillated between “toddlers as lovable but completely self-absorbed” and “toddlers as disdainfully gleeful sadists,” and I didn’t enjoy the latter bits as much.  Overall, however, it was still awfully funny, and parents of small children will have a blast looking through it.