Blacklisted from the PTA

There are precious few laughs, or even grins, in this collection of more than 60 short comic essays from the managing editor of parentingsquad.com. The subjects covered in the book's seven sections (e.g., "Birth, Babies, and Beyond," "Suburban Bliss," "Me Time") are familiar and handled more deftly in anthologies such as Beth Feldman's See Mom Run: Side-Splitting Essays from the World's Most Harried Moms. Davidson's insights and asides are mostly clich%C3%A9d and banal: "I'd love to see these A-listers before their morning triple tall latte. Show me the beautiful people frantically chasing down a toddler, trying to get neon poop out of the carpet, and dripping in spit up. Then I'll be impressed." Her accounts of her children's curiosity about human anatomy, her disgust at fancy birthday parties, and her sarcastic letter to her mother, "Thanks for the Whore Barbie," are predictable. And there are too many superior accounts of misadventures in the kitchen to make "Top 10 Things That Could Go Wrong While Baking%E2%80%94A Cautionary Tale" at all worthwhile.