Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I wrote a whole bunch of PTA checks this morning, friends–including one to myself, which will never stop being incredibly weird. (Writing yourself a check and then not signing it is almost as difficult as not flushing the toilet when the power’s out and you have a well with an electric pump–you tell yourself not to and tell yourself not to, but habit and muscle memory are powerful, powerful things.) After an exercise-and-hair-washing stint at home, I went to the bank to deposit checks for the PTA as well, by which time I just managed to eat lunch and be ready to walk to get my elementary schooler.

The rest of the day was filled with mom things (including a sitting-on-the-couch nap), but before dinner I managed to finish Alison McGhee’s Dear Brother, which I’m now reviewing so that my grabby reader girls can get their hands on it. (That doesn’t include the one with three AP classes–she’s too busy to be grabby.) I reviewed McGhee’s Dear Sister back in 2022, and after looking over my review, I have more or less the same thing to say about Dear Brother–namely, that its portrayal of sibling relationships feels amazingly spot on, with the antagonism and the begrudging growth (and/or admission) of sentiment. In Brother, our sister protagonist is blindsided by her family’s acquisition of the pet her brother wants, instead of the dog she’s been longing for. It’s the icing on the cake of her sibling resentment, and her tirade about it may or may not last for at least 50 pages; growth and change do come, however, and in a way that made this parent smile. I recommend! I also have to give a shoutout to Tuan Nini, whose illustrations are vital to the book as a whole. I’m more of a text person than an art person, but Dear Brother would only be half a book without its art.

And speaking of sibling relationships, my foster brother reached out to my sister on Facebook after two decades of my parents wondering what happened to him after he went to live with extended family. Miracles happen–and siblings matter. Have a great day!