Christina Baker Kline
© Copyright 2007 Christina Baker Kline. All Rights Reserved.
- • Alice Elliot Dark on the decision to have only one child
• Michael Laser on the complexities of being a stay-at-home father
• Rob Spillman on wanting to give his own children the childhood he
never had
• Maxine Chernoff on raising twin boys who are very different from each
other
• Annaliese Hood on the joys and the pains of adoption
• Roberta Israeloff on anticipating the end of her youngest son’s childhood
• Noelle Oxenhandler on a child’s capacity to reshuffle a parent’s priorities
• And 14 more insightful, humorous and profoundly moving essays
As in her acclaimed first collection, CHILD OF MINE, Baker Kline demonstrates her ability to draw from her
contributors the deep essence and meaning of their experience. As a result, ROOM TO GROW, while more
diverse and less specific than CHILD OF MINE (which concentrated on the first year of parenthood), resounds
with insight, humor, and thought-provoking excellence.
The diversity of these personal essays -- the trouble and trauma of naming a child, the nightly reading ritual,
the experience of adoption, the decision to have only one child -- is highly appropriate for the subject
matter, which includes the experience of parenting children as a whole, from toddlerhood to pre-
adolescence, and the voices of both fathers and mothers.
“In the end,” writes Christina Baker Kline in her Introduction, “the pieces in this book are candid, reflective,
and intimate. Telling stories small and large, these essayists capture the essence of parenthood: what it
means to be deeply connected to another human being, and what we face as we begin the attenuated
process of letting go.”
Room to Grow: 22 Writers Encounter the Pleasures and Paradoxes
of Raising Young Children, edited by Christina Baker Kline (St. Martin’s):
In this volume, an impressive array of contemporary writers takes on the
formidable task of defining the essence of being a parent.
The contributors to this collection include a number of known and
respected names, including Francine Prose, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer,
and Larry Brown, as well as some talented new voices. They represent a
wide spectrum of ages, experiences, writing styles, geographical locations,
and cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The one trait they share is a
willingness to dig deep and write with honesty about their experiences as
the parents of children between the ages of 2 and 10.
With a perfect balance of humor and pathos, intensity and lightness, the
essays that comprise Room to Grow explore the "whys" rather than the
"how-tos" of parenting. Each of these entertaining and evocative essays
focuses on one central issue about raising young children:
of Raising Young Children, edited by Christina Baker Kline (St. Martin’s):
In this volume, an impressive array of contemporary writers takes on the
formidable task of defining the essence of being a parent.
The contributors to this collection include a number of known and
respected names, including Francine Prose, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer,
and Larry Brown, as well as some talented new voices. They represent a
wide spectrum of ages, experiences, writing styles, geographical locations,
and cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The one trait they share is a
willingness to dig deep and write with honesty about their experiences as
the parents of children between the ages of 2 and 10.
With a perfect balance of humor and pathos, intensity and lightness, the
essays that comprise Room to Grow explore the "whys" rather than the
"how-tos" of parenting. Each of these entertaining and evocative essays
focuses on one central issue about raising young children:
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