Revisiting Fave Books Celebrating Great Moms

This weekend is Mother's Day and my previous blog post was on the bleak bad-mom side (talking about filicide) as is typical of many murder mystery characters and plots. But there's also the mother whom we all would like to have, or grow up to be. Unfortunately, the traits that make a "good mother," per experts, are dauntingly demanding: empathetic, patient, emotionally strong and resilient, humble, respectful of others, authoritative without being authoritarian, supportive, and, of course, loving. We know most of our mothers, and ourselves as parents, fall short of those goals from time to time. Maybe it's easier to avoid the things that make for really bad mothering: neglectful, abusive, overprotective, aloof, partial, overindulgent, interfering, untrustworthy, and so on. In thinking about motherly role models, I found myself turning to favorite, formative childhood reading. Everyone wants to meet the brave and kind Ma of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, the brilliant yet supportive scientist Mrs. Murry of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, the family rock Marmee in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, or adoptive parent Marilla's love-beneath-a-stern-exterior in Anne of Green Gables from L.M. Montgomery. More recently, readers can embrace the warm but fiercely protective Mrs. Weasley of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. So for timely Mother's Day inspiration, why not reacquaint yourself, or younger readers, with some top moms (and dads) in literature? Check out http://mentalfloss.com/article/57128/30-best-parents-literature

Reading for Perspective on Our Wintry Storms

As I write, it's a rainy day in Southern California, which is what passes for "a major storm" here but nothing like the paralyzing snowstorms in the Northeast. Wintry weather events are reminders of nature's power and our vulnerability despite climate-controlled environments, fossil-fuel-powered transport and electronically-dependent communications. But such storms were even more devastating in the past. For example, younger family members can gain perspective with a childhood favorite, The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is one of the more exciting Little House books as well as a fairly accurate portrayal of the terrible "Snow Winter" of 1880-1881 in the Dakotas. Or they can read Blizzard!--The Storm That Changed America by Jim Murphy. It's about the East Coast blizzard of March 1888, when wind-driven snow accumulated in 50-foot drifts in some places and lead to 400 deaths, 200 in New York City alone. The disruption of above-ground telegraph/telephone and rail led to changes such as underground communications lines and the first underground subway in Boston. For adult readers, there is the moving The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. This cautionary tale covers the tragic Schoolhouse Blizzard that suddenly blasted the Great Plains in the afternoon of January 12, 1888, after an unseasonal warm morning that had schoolchildren forgoing heavy coats and gloves. It was called the Schoolhouse Blizzard because so many of the 500 or so dead were schoolchildren trying to walk home from one-room schoolhouses through blinding snow, with many found frozen just yards from shelter. For more historical perspectives, read about some other surprising weather impacts on human events: http://www.weather.com/news/news/7-strange-ways-weather-has-changed-history-20130921#/1