Nonfiction: biography/ethnography: Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish, Grace H. Kaiser

Found while weeding the collection.

Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish
Grace H. Kaiser
ISBN: 0934672342
Finished November 6, 2014

I was interested in this book because I've always had a bit of an interest/soft spot in my affections for Amish and Mennonite peoples.  My own church upbringing was rural and similarly sheltered from secular influence, so I see a lot of my own background in their culture and lifestyles.  One of my favorite nonfiction books as a child and young adult was Rosanna of the Amish by Joseph W. Yoder,("Restored Text" edition with editor Julia Spicher Kasdorf ISBN: 9780836194081).  I read it often, and was very interested in the lifestyles and religious practices which sometimes matched so closely to my own background, and sometimes seemed so strange and alien to me.

This book wasn't as good as I hoped for, the author is obviously not a natural writer (expected, as she's a professional credentialed working doctor), and her vignettes, while interesting, aren't written in a way that enhances or embellishes their natural circumstances.  On the one hand, that means that the stories are un-polished and sometimes lacking in narrative tricks to sustain interest, but on the other, they are obviously true and natural memories of real-life events in all their chaotic and messy undertones.

If you really adore the Amish, this is an interesting outsider's perspective on them, focused almost exclusively on the experiences of birthing mothers and expectant families (much like James Herriot's stories of veterinary life, there's lots of getting up in the middle of the night from a warm bed and rattling around a cold or rainy countryside, hoping that you get to far-flung farms in time to help).  There is very little internal information - the author never learned much (really any) Pennsylvania Dutch, and her experiences and friendships remain the somewhat reserved and professional contacts between patient and doctor, Amish and English, even though in the countryside, both of those boundaries are less restrictive or formal than they would perhaps be in other situations.

While the narrative voice is clear and appealing, the writing skills are a bit lacking, and for me, that lack of polish was a great detriment to the vignettes that were presented, and the vividness of the people and events suffered.

New Picture Book: The Baby Tree, Sophie Blackall

This one's a real cutie.

The Baby Tree
Sophia Blackall
ISBN: 9780399257186
ink-and-watercolor in bright pastels and pink-cheeked faces.

One morning, our narrator finds out his parents are going to have a baby, and this leads to the question - where does a baby come from?  Commute-buddy Olive says it's a seed that grows, his teacher says they come from the hospital, the mailman says eggs are involved, and grandpa thinks the stork drops them off.  Now he's really confused.  Parents set him straight with a very simplistic but honest explanation, and he realizes that his buddy Olive, his teacher, and the mailman all had parts of the idea right (dad's seed, mom's egg, and most babies are born in hospitals) but he really needs to go see grandpa and set him straight.  So adorable, and has a nice section in the back with scripted talking points to help parents with curious kids, and reassures that telling the truth about the process is most helpful and most developmentally appropriate for all kids.

Glad to see it, and glad we have it available for our parents and potential siblings.

Previously Publishe Review: From the Hips, Rebecca Odes

As someone not particularly interested in pain and hospitals (or even children) I read this book more for reassurance than any other reason. For that purpose, I'd suggest that others are better off with a grade-school textbook which glosses over all the unpleasant bits.

There are scads of comments from pregnant or recently pregnant women splashed about the book discussing everything from conception to sore nipples, and amazingly enough, most of them were negative.

I can't imagine why, in this modern, image-overconscious, sexually laden, instant-gratification, pain-killing society, women would feel negatively about their bodies distending, erratic sex-drives, 9-month "baby vessel" status, followed by a painful labor process (where 10 hours is still considered short...) and then a loss of personal space, sex-drive (again) and sore nipples. Oh, wait. Yes I can imagine. Ouch. Yikes.

All that scary commentary aside, this book really is useful. There is an amazing wealth and variety of information presented in a strangely bias-free (mostly) environment, usually with comments from parents who tried it, with varying results.

Nausea remedies, natural birth options, water-bith discussions, hospital information, introduction to different epidural styles, the use (and general uselessness) of a "birth planning" document - its all in there.

Also in there are reams of info on new babies - you know - the ultimate wrinkly shrieking goal of the whole enterprise. Yeah. There's the requisite breast-feeding vs formula debate, a how to get your baby to sleep section (co-sleeping, SIDS, how many hours of sleep mom will lose (300 in the first year) whether they should be on a sleep-schedule...) and many references to the necessities of work, daycares, nannys, au pairs, and all that "alloparenting" information needed in this 2-income society of ours. Strangely, since all of this is so culturally "hot-button," treated in an amazingly unbiased manner.

So, all in all, despite me being a wimp and easily traumatized by their candid treatment of it all, I can see that this is an amazing resource, and one I'll be glad for when (if) I ever take that plunge.