Review: Mom: A Celebration of Mothers

Mom: A Celebration of Mothers From Storycorps Edited by Dave Isay

Publication Date: April 2010

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Genre: Story Collection, Mothers

Pages: Hardcover, 208pp

ISBN-13: 9781594202612

ISBN: 1594202613

(Received for review from TLC Tours)

Purchase: Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, IndieBound

What is Storycorps? (Taken from the introduction in Mom A Celebration of Mothers)

StoryCorps launched October 23, 2003 in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. It was admittedly something of a crazy idea: put a recording booth in the middle of one of the busiest train stations in the world, then invite pairs of people to come in and interview each other about the most important moments in their lives.

But the idea worked, the project caught on, and StoryCorps has since spread swiftly across the country. In just six-years, StoryCorps has recorded nearly thirty thousand interviews with more than fifty thousand participants. Determined to collect the widest possible array of American voices, we've traveled to cities, towns, and hamlets across all fifty states. Along the way, we've drawn participants from every imaginable background - ever race and ethnicity, occupation, and age. Despite this amazing diversity of voices, however, the individual stories we've collected have taught us that as a nation there is so much more that we share than divides us.

Dave Isay and Storycorps on the WEB: website, blog, facebook, twitter

Listen to a story from Mom: A Celebration of Mothers From Storycorps

Synopsis (Book Jacket):

In Mom, Dave Isay - StoryCorps's founder and the editor of the project's bestselling collections, Listening Is an Act of Love - presents a celebration of American mothers. Featuring StoryCorps's most revelatory stories on the subject, Mom looks across the diversity of experience to present an entirely original portrait of motherhood.

Through conversations between parents and children, husbands and wives, siblings and friends, the life of the American mother unfolds. In stories that take us from the woods of New Hampshire to urban Detroit and beyond, we meet mothers and children from all walks of life - an immigrant mother instilling in her children the importance of education, adult children caring for an elderly parent, a woman remembering the sound of her mother's laugh, and mothers and children of all ages learning to grow into new roles over time. Visiting families in moments of profound joy and sadness, courage and despair, struggle and triumph, we learn new truths about that most primal and sacred of bonds - the relationship between mother and child.

With this vital contribution to the American storybook, StoryCorps has created a tribute to mothers that honors the wealth of our national experience. An appreciation of the wisdom and generosity passed between mothers and children, the generation to the next, Mom offers powerful lessons in the meaning of family and the expansiveness of the human heart.

Thoughts:

Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps has created a collection of stories focusing on mom's just in time for the Mother's Day holiday. Taken from thousands of interviews of American's from every walk of life, age and ethnicity, this collection is something every mother would cherish. This book celebrates the bond between mothers and children in a unique and different way.

Before reading this wonderful collection celebrating mothers, I had never heard of the StoryCorps project. This unique forum for Americans was developed to let people share the most important moments in their lives through their own words and from their own hearts. I was completely blown away by the idea and how wonderful this project is. The website offers a lot of information for readers who are interested in finding out more and even a way to upload your own story. There are stories about just about everything you can think of. You can listen to them online or get one of the collections like this one.

Mom A Celebration of Mothers is book that really explores the relationships between mothers and their children. A lot of the interviews recorded by the StoryCorps are done in pairs. One person interviewing another person and apparently a lot of those pairs were mothers and daughters, moms and sons, children who wanted to remember moments in their lives that involved their mothers. Dave Isay edited the collection with a keen eye for the stories and moments that would really speak to women and mothers in there everyday lives.

I thought the collection was just wonderful. I liked the way Isay divided the stories in categories: wisdom, devotion and enduring love. I found stories in each section that spoke to me and made me remember things about my own mother that have touched me over the years. These stories effectively made me appreciate my own mother even more than I already did. But it had another affect also: It made me wonder what my own children will say about me one day or what they feel about me right now.

I was very moved by this collection and I recommend that all of my readers take a look at this one. During this time of the year we tend to think more about our moms and their profound affects on our lives. With a collection like this it doesn't have to be Mother's Day to ponder our relationship with one of the most important people in our lives.

Mom A Celebration of Mothers From StoryCorps is available from your favorite bookseller NOW.

I'm giving this one 4 out of 5 apples from my book bag!

Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including five Peabody awards and a MacArthur "genius" fellowship. He is he author/editor of four books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including the first StoryCorps books, Listening is an Act of Love, a New York Times bestseller.