cover image Don't Make Me Stop This Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood

Don't Make Me Stop This Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood

Al Roker. Simon & Schuster Audio, $23 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-7435-0028-9

TV weatherman Roker comes across as affable, humorously self-deprecating and immensely likable in this memoir of parenthood. His voice is warm and affectionate as he describes his two daughters, Courtney and Leila, and his years of talking into the camera give him an ease behind the microphone that makes him sound as if he is chatting personally with the listener. The material itself, however, is uneven. His struggles to become a father--once through infertility treatments, once through adoption--are truly compelling, and his reflections about his own father, a bus driver who raised several foster children in addition to his own, are sweet and poignant. But when Roker talks about his own experiences of being a father, he sounds like every other proud parent in the world. He was thrilled when he witnessed his daughters' first steps; he enjoys buying cute little-girl clothes from Baby Gap. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Forecasts, June 19). (June)