A Mother's World: Journeys of the Heart

This latest addition to Bond and Michael's Traveler's Tales series is a collection of 30 essays, some previously published and others original. Varying in interest and competence, each piece recounts the experience of traveling with a child or a parent. With the exception of Colin Bear, who writes about visiting his adoptive mother's relatives in Alaska (""Mama Bear""), all the authors are women. Some of the journeys, like Joyce Wilson's trip to Egypt with her mother (""Christmas in Cairo""), are to faraway locales, while other selections describe neighborhood jaunts, such as New Yorker Christine Loomis's account of a day spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her three-year-old daughter. The essays collectively touch upon a variety of topics. Louise Erdrich, in an excerpt from her The Blue Jay's Dance, marvels at how a bird's nest makes her aware of the need to let her children go. Cherilyn Parsons (""Mother to the World"") details her feelings while nursing very ill children at Mother Teresa's Calcutta orphanage. Altogether, this combination of traveling and caretaking is a moving reminder of the nature of love's bonds. (June)