Readers Respond

"Moving and extremely powerful . . . a very interesting book."

---Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory

"A very impressive read. Jennifer Margulis has put together a book you can't help but read from cover to cover."

---Tillie Olsen, author of "I Stand Here Ironing," Silences, Tell Me a Riddle, and Mother to Daughter, Daughter to Mother

"This delightful, searingly honest, hilarious, sad and moving book captures the whole rollercoaster of emotions that come with the territory of rearing a toddler. You'll savor all the voices in these pages, and best of all, you can devour each mother's story in your preciously small snatches of time!"

---Harriet Lerner, Ph.D, author of The Dance of Anger and The Mother Dance

What a wonderful book! In my professional life I do research and outreach focused on helping parents of toddlers cope with the stresses of raising those "fickle, irrational, urgent, tiny people." I've been a preschool teacher, and I also have 2 little boys (6- and 4-years old), so the memories of toddler hood are still fresh in my mind. Parents say this is the most difficult time for them (until junior high!), but it is also my favorite stage—scary, magical, unpredictable, and exhausting.

Toddlers manage to bring us to our knees—sometimes in despair when we reveal all that we fear and dread about ourselves—sometimes in awe of the grace and goodness we never imagined we could know. Raising a toddler is hard, humbling, often lonely work. In my professional and personal life I’ve found that parents value "expert advice," but it is the stories of other parents that best soothe doubts, fears and aching hearts. Sharing these stories comfort, inspire, and ultimately connect us with our families and ourselves.

This collection had me laughing out loud, quietly sobbing, and squirming with discomfort as I recognized thoughts and feelings I don’t often admit to myself. Here are the joys, fears, and dirty little secrets that we thought no one else (especially those "good parents") had. The stories range from heartbreaking and hilarious, and some are so unflinchingly honest that I sometimes had to stop in fear of seeing myself. Jennifer Margulis and the authors have given us a wonderful gift, and I am recommending this to my colleagues, students, and friends.

---Aaron Ebata, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Social Development and Extension Specialist, Family Life; Department of Human and Community Development; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Toddler shines light on the wonderful world of children who are no longer babies, but not yet kids. It's a marvelous place, where new words and invisible friends come into being, and where parents first get to know what's going on in the hearts and minds of the noble little savages they have borne. Jennifer Margulis has put together a delightfully chubby collection of essays that show us that there's nothing so terrible about having a two-year-old, after all."

---Martha Brockenbrough, author of It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond

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