Small Animals

May 7, 2018
Repercussions pummel essayist and fiction writer Brooks after she leaves her toddler in her minivan to run an errand and is reported to the police, in this disturbing, ultimately affirming look at why parenting in the contemporary United States is defined by fear. With her personal journey—which included facing charges of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”—providing the book’s narrative spine, she asks why mothers are competitive and judgmental with one another when they should be supportive of each other through such a “fundamentally anxious endeavor” as parenting. Consulting social psychology research, she discovers Lerner’s Just World Hypothesis, the cognitive bias toward assuming that advantageous consequences will follow from one’s own moral actions. She also reaches out to Lenore Skenazy, famous for her “free-range” parenting philosophy, who emphasizes the irrationality of parents’ fears, and to other mothers arrested for leaving their children unattended. What is clear, she says, is that “motherhood has become a battleground on which prejudice and class resentment can be waged without ever admitting that’s what we’re doing.” After casting outward for reasons, the author faces her own anxiety, knowing change comes from within. Throughout this book, readers will be eager to reach the conclusion and discover the ultimate outcome of the author’s misstep, and along the way, will learn much about U.S. culture today.

June 15, 2018
An incisive investigation of the many complex "points of intersection" between "parenthood and fear."Making a quick trip into a store, Brooks (The Houseguest, 2016) was only gone for five minutes, leaving her 4-year-old son in his car seat inside the locked car, with the windows ajar. Yet those moments transformed her life in more ways than she could have imagined. With nonapologetic honesty, the author shares her story of that day and the aftermath as her case of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" worked its way through Virginia's court system. The author skillfully interlinks her personal story with interviews of other mothers who have done similar things--e.g., letting their children play at a local park alone or going to get coffee while leaving a child in a car. She also provides a well-researched look at the American parenting system; she discovered that not only are Americans highly competitive in the parenting realm, they are extremely judgmental as well. More often than not, her experience brought her shame and made her question the extreme role that parents, particularly mothers, play in child-rearing. The intense scrutiny by others and the pervasive fear that surrounds American parenting are contributing to a generation of children lacking independence and autonomy. Brooks also shares insights into European methods of parenting, which are far more permissive for the children and more relaxed for the parents. This is a surprisingly moving account of what is a fairly common experience, delivering readers much food for thought on the multilayered issues of how much control parents should have over their children's lives and how much input parents should offer other parents. "Fear is neither wrong nor right. It is what it is," writes Brooks. "But in the end, it can't give us the thing we most desire...control."An engaging, enlightening story that reveals the potential harm parents and society can do to children when they don't allow them any freedoms at all.

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Starred review from July 1, 2018
Parents will flock to read the first nonfiction book from Brooks, a novelist (The Houseguest, 2016) and frequent essay contributor to popular media outlets. Her engaging account of life as a modern-day parent blends memoir and her research from interviews with other parents, psychiatrists, and parenting experts to provide a deeper understanding of the ways fear and judgment affect the limits and freedoms we give ourselves and our children. And last, but possibly most crucial, is her exploration of how a lack of freedom affects children in the long run. Parents will see themselves in Brooks' personal account of parenting and may relate to the dramatic experience from her own life that frames the book. Of the questions she poses, this one stands out: Why have we bought into this assumption that the parent who is the most cautious, the most irrationally afraid, the most risk-averse, is the best or most loving parent? Parents who are seeking advice, rather than reflection, will appreciate the vast number of other titles Brooks cites throughout the book. Small Animals belongs on the shelves of every public library.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 1, 2018

Novelist and essayist Brooks had no idea she was about to become a "Bad Mom," to be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and to take a deep investigative dive into the state of American parenting. When her son was four years old, Brooks made a last-minute decision to let him stay in the car for a few minutes while she ran an errand. Observed by a bystander who alerted the police, Brooks found herself in a sudden and persistent nightmare of recrimination and self-doubt which she's parlayed into this trenchant investigation of the contemporary fear-based approach to parenthood. She surveys the history of American childhood (kids have never been safer, nor parents as worried), the assumptions of privilege (poor parents lack the resources to keep children under constant watch; does this render them inherently negligent?), the misogyny of judgmental attitudes toward mothers, and the profound implications of our cultural and legal elevation of the risks of childhood independence over its benefits. VERDICT Compassionate and empathetic, appalled and angry, this fierce, intimate blend of memoir, reportage, and critique is essential reading for parents, policymakers, and all others concerned about our children and their future.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus

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