Lisa Erspamer

A Letter to My Mom, curated by Lisa Erspamer, calls on a wide range of contributors to share their connections with their mothers. As you would expect, most of the letters are of praise and love. However, not all. I appreciate that reality. Mothers and children have very complex relationships, and I am glad that including the variety of letters acknowledges that. A lovely little gift just in time for Mother's Day.

Read my complete review at: rel="nofollow" target="_top">http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2015/05/a-letter-to-my-mom.html

Reviewed for the Blogging for Books program.… (més)

"Sent from my heart" - will.i.am

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review through Blogging for Books.)

The third book in Lisa Erspamer's "letter" series (previous titles include A Letter to My Dog and A Letter to My Cat), A Letter to My Mom is a sweet and touching (and timely, with Mother's Day just around the corner!) collection of letters from children to their mothers.

What first struck me about the collection is its diversity. There are a fair number of celebrity pairings, yes, but also quite a few letters written by regular folks too. There are letters from children as well as adults; groups of siblings as well as single letter-writers; women and men, girls and boys; adopted as well as biological children; letters addressed to elderly parents as well as middle-aged parents; even a handful written to mothers who have since passed on.

Happily, there's also a fair amount of racial diversity; while many of the faces are white, there are also Korean, Latina, African-American, Chinese, Indian, Jewish, and Taiwanese mothers and daughters. Some of the most touching letters are from second-generation American immigrants whose mothers left their homelands to pursue the American Dream and give their kids a better life. Trish Broome - the product of a now-failed marriage between a Korean mother and American GI father who met during the Vietnam War - writes of the many sacrifices her mother, Bok Ja Smith, made for her family:

My back, which rests comfortably against an office chair every day, has never felt over 60 years of hard labor like yours. It didn't have to stand tall as customers walked through a flea market store, or bend over machines in factories. It hasn't endured years of carrying laundry baskets or helping children move boxes to and from college.

It does, however, have a Korean tiger tattoo on it that represents strength, and it represents you.

Among the celebrity contributors - Kristen Chenoweth, Cat Cora, Sarah Ferguson, Josh Groban, Mariel Hemingway, Ali Landry, Monica Lewinsky, Lisa Ling, Dr. Phil, Robin Meade, Kelly Osbourne, Melissa Rivers, Molly Sims, Shania Twain, will.i.am, and Ginger Zee - is Jennifer Arnold, one half of TLC's The Little Couple. When she failed to grow and thrive in infancy, her mother was erroneously accused of starving her. She writes of how her mother became her champion and advocate, traveling the country to obtain medical treatment, staying by her bedside summer after summer, as her vacations were dominated by painful surgeries.

Many of the more exceptional letters come from "regular" people. There's Patricia Brooks, who rescued her girls from their physically and sexually abusive stepfather; they fled from their home in the dead of the night, carrying little more than the clothes on their backs. They were fortunate enough to land the last spot in a pilot program that provided temporary housing for women and children on one floor of the President Hotel in Manhattan. (Today, they might have been able to bring Tinkerbell the cat too, as more and more women's shelters recognize the link between domestic violence and animal abuse, and honor the human-animal bond in their work.)

Sonia Kang's parents were an interracial couple struggling against bigotry and hatred in the aftermath of Loving vs. Virginia; as a child, their biracial daughter grappled with the feeling of not-belonging to either world: "When I called crying saying I'm not Black enough or Latina enough, you comforted me from miles away and you told me that I was enough. And I believed you."

While there's no shortage of tearjerkers here, some of the letters are absolutely agonizing. Lisa Hirsch's letter is to her mom Ruth Elian, who suffers from Alzheimer's and only occasionally recognizes her. And Susan Nirah Jaffee remembers helping her mother transition during her last month on Earth; what she thought might be a form of "reverse labor" became a "rebirth" for Jaffee, as the experience granted her a new appreciation for life, in all its abbreviated beauty: "Every minute I spent with you, right through the very moment you crossed over, I grew – not in cells and tissues and organs, but in character and spirit and purpose. Although your body was winding down, your soul was blossoming."

So many of these moms are pioneers, trailblazers, and superheroes. To at least one person, anyway.

Yet it's all too easy to idolize certain maternal characteristics while stripping away all else that makes moms human; putting mothers on a pedestal and romanticizing a thankless job while continuing, as a society, to devalue it.

A Letter to My Mom challenges this cultural tendency; along with largely favorable (yet humanizing) letters are the few odd negatives. Suze Orman's letter to her mother Ann, for example, damn near broke my heart. Orman reports that, after she came out, her mom stopped saying the three little words every kid needs to hear - "I love you" - even as she appeared outwardly to be okay with Orman's sexual orientation. And then there's the letter from Tejal Patel, which hints at emotional and physical abuse.

Aesthetically, the book is lovely, with glossy, colorful pages and tons of snapshots of the mothers - both solo, and in candid moments with their children. There's even a page, styled like stationary, for you to pen a letter to your own mom should you wish.

Naturally, this would be a wonderful gift for moms - for Mother's Day, of course, but also birthdays, Christmas, even Valentine's Day. Or just because.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2015/05/10/a-letter-to-my-mom-by-lisa-erspamer/… (més)

This book is a love letter, filled with love letters. It is for everyone who has ever loved or been loved by a cat. A loving tribute, it illuminates the bond between human and feline in a very open and sincere way.

Each letter is written by an actual “cat owner”, though I really do not like that term. The authors are from a variety of backgrounds, occupations, and walks of life. Speaking to their cat, they lovingly discuss their relationship, events, what the cat has added or given to their life. The letters describe in all honesty how this special bond has affected the human’s life, even making them a better person.

In addition, a beautiful photograph of the cat accompanies the letter. The photos further reflect the uniqueness of the individual cat. This is a visual reminder that each cat is different in its own wonderful way. In this same way, each bond and experience is unique and special.

This beautiful book is a loving testament to this amazing human/feline bond. It is a meaningful, heartfelt and genuine book to be cherished forever. Thankfully, over the years I have done this with my “own” cats, as well as my dogs. I recommend you do, too. And I sincerely recommend this book.… (més)