Rating: 
Summary: Worth waiting for!
Review: Oh, what a find this book is! The announcer mentioned the title after one of Janis' commentaries on NPR so I ordered a copy. It took forever (a few weeks!) for the book to arrive, but it was WELL worth the wait. I'm in the habit of keeping a book with me whenever I leave my house, just to fill time while waiting for my kids, etc. Last week I was in the orthodontist's office waiting for my son and reading my copy of "Birdseed Cookies" and they could hear me laughing all the way back in the examining room! So here I am again, ordering more copies for my mother and my brother and my sisters. I guess that tells you everything you need to know!!!
Rating:
Summary: Love those Cookies
Review: Readers who, like me, are familiar with Janis Jaquith's essays on public radio, can't help but hear her voice in each of these collected pieces. But, even those who are complete strangers to her radio work will enjoy the ride through the life and mind of this sometimes ditzy, always insightful writer.The pieces are short, most not more than three pages. You can dip into them, one at a time, to savor each morsel, or, if you're greedy, like me, you'll devour the whole book in one sitting. Jaquith seems to have this knack for telling stories on herself. She sets up her wonderfully wacky solutions for dealing with problems ("I'm a genius.") and then lets us watch them result in absolute failure (Ah, Jeez!). I loved "Pond Scum", the tale of her hare-brained scheme to remove algae from her pond with the aid of electric fans and many extension cords. Only Lucy Ricardo comes close. The thing is, she's not afraid to embarrass herself and that makes for entertaining and revealing reading. It's not all a circus, though. Jaquith examines both the big and small moments of her life and, in so doing, weaves a tapestry that really is a "fractured memoir". She's trying to make sense of it all, just as we all are. The reader alternates between thoughts of "you know, that's exactly how I feel, but I've never been able to put it into words" and "I never knew there were people like that". She takes the reader from unbearable poignancy ("A Magic Phone") to laugh-out-loud comedy (the title "Birdseed Cookies"). The thing is, neither the tears nor the laughter is ever cheap. It's all well-earned and well-executed. This is the kind of book that, like Russell Baker's memoir, you want to buy, not only for yourself, but for your parents, your kids, everybody you love, because it's a way of saying that you're not alone.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Eye-Opener
Review: The essay entitled, "Attention Deficit Disorder - Who Knew?" is worth the price of the book. Janice Jaquith doesn't just tell us what it's like to be a child with ADD, she shows us, in using the point of view of herself as a child, just what these kids go through. I have been the mother of a child struggling with ADD for almost ten years. I have read every parenting and child development book I could get my hands on. But not until I read this story did I have a clue about what it's like to actually BE a person with ADD. My eyes are open and I will never look at my child the same way. The other stories in this collection are really entertaining. I found myself laughing at some parts, and sniffling back tears in other parts. I lent my copy of "Birdseed Cookies" to my son's math teacher so maybe she'll understand what he's going through. I find myself wishing she'd hurry up and give it back, because there are quite a few of the stories in there that I'd like to read again. (Usually, I never read books again once I've finished with them, so this is really something!)
Rating:
Summary: A Real Eye-Opener
Review: The essay entitled, "Attention Deficit Disorder - Who Knew?" is worth the price of the book. Janice Jaquith doesn't just tell us what it's like to be a child with ADD, she shows us, in using the point of view of herself as a child, just what these kids go through. I have been the mother of a child struggling with ADD for almost ten years. I have read every parenting and child development book I could get my hands on. But not until I read this story did I have a clue about what it's like to actually BE a person with ADD. My eyes are open and I will never look at my child the same way. The other stories in this collection are really entertaining. I found myself laughing at some parts, and sniffling back tears in other parts. I lent my copy of "Birdseed Cookies" to my son's math teacher so maybe she'll understand what he's going through. I find myself wishing she'd hurry up and give it back, because there are quite a few of the stories in there that I'd like to read again. (Usually, I never read books again once I've finished with them, so this is really something!)
Rating:
Summary: my favorite christmas gift!
Review: There's a woman in my office who doesn't like "seinfeld." Nice person, but she doesn't like the show and thinks its truly about "nothing." She doesn't like to read dave barry, or david sedaris, and never did like erma bombeck. A book like "birdseed cookies" is in a similar vein: it's about "nothing." Kids with head lice? Giving up on learning to ski? Getting your heart broken? Who cares about this stuff? These things happen to everyone, so why write about them? If that's how you feel, then don't get this book. IF, on the other hand, you LIKE reading about small moments and love that flash of recognition, the moment when you say, "Yes! That's just what it's like!" then you will LOVE this book. You will laugh out loud. You will pass it along to your friends, who will thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Wise
Review: This book does for ADD what the book DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE does for Bi-polar. You can always learn something new from someone who has been through it--more than all the doctors and psychiatrists put together.
Rating: 
Summary: A good book. Not a great book.
Review: This book of short essays starts out strong. The writing is good, funny. It made me laugh out loud and kept me reading. After completing "Attention Deficit Disorder-Who Knew?" a poignant and honest account of a child's classroom struggles, I felt this was going to be on a par with "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. But sadly, in the end I was disappointed. I believe the author is talented and accomplishes her mission of presenting stream-of-consciousness material, but the collection lacked a palpable order and ultimately provided more questions than answers. Take, for example, the piece titled "Celebration," about her twin sons' second birthday party coinciding with a call from the pediatrician and the devastating news that cancer has spread to her son's lungs. She predicts he won't make it to his third birthday; however, we don't really learn the outcome. To mix this serious topic with the whimsical subjects of 3-M notepads and doggies in Burberry trenchcoats made me long for a little organization. Take me down a funny road, take me down a serious road-but give me some warning signals, please. Perhaps this is why the subtitle is "a fractured memoir." I think I might prefer the novels she mentions in the essays. Will they be published anytime soon? I've read that good writers borrow from great writers and great writers steal the material overtly. In the essay named "Quack," I wonder if the author borrowed or stole from Arlo Guthrie. Janis Jaquith has shown moments of greatness in Birdseed Cookies, but overall, I think this was a just a good book.
| 
