Sometimes funny people write books that are meant to be funny but aren’t. Elizabeth Beckwith is as funny on the page as she is on the stage. Check out this great review in Booklist. Then check out the book itself. Free copies to 25 lucky people who promise to send in a review – and tell all their friends about this funny writer. Just shoot us an email at librarylovefest at harpercollins.com.
-Virginia
Beckwith, Elizabeth. Raising the Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation. HarperCollins. Oct. 2009. 256p. ISBN 978-0-06-175957-4. pap. $14.99. HUMOR
Comedian and actress Beckwith here takes a saucy tongue-in-cheek approach to parenting advice, complete with laugh-out-loud funny chapter summaries, discussion questions, and pseudo letters from readers. Via chapters titled à la "How To Scare the Crap Out of Your Child (in a Positive Way)," readers relive much of Beckwith’s youth in her Italian Catholic family and will chortle at many of her experiences. Covering such topics as raising a nerd, Beckwith advises, "Instead of being cranky that your son didn’t make the football team, breathe a sigh of relief that he is now less likely to be involved in an ill-conceived gang-bang." Touché, Beckwith; well done!