Ayelet Waldman manages to touch a nerve and a funny bone in her new book, Bad Mother: a Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, & Occasional Moments of Grace.  Waldman, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Assistant D.A., is now a stay-at-home Mom and author.  She is raising her four children in progressive Berkeley, California, along with her stay-at-home husband of 15 years, who incidentally is the novelist, Michael Chabon.  In a series of 18 controversial essays, she covers varied topics such as breastfeeding, her relationship with her feminist mother, parental compulsions to produce super-star children, abortion, balancing career and motherhood, sex education, and schoolyard dodge ball.  Her wickedly funny observations do not spare the strident Berkeley group of Moms who proselytize breastfeeding and the family bed with the zeal and rigidity of the religious fundamentalist.  With scathing wit and honesty, Waldman advocates setting high standards for oneself to be a good Mom but allowing for the wisdom of self-forgiveness for the inevitable mistakes.  (Find it in the Library under New Adult NF 813.6WAL.) 

 Judy Lipstein - Circulation Staff