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'Lessons for Survival' thinks about parenting through social and environmental crises May 16, 2024

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As a parent, how do you navigate – and feel hope – raising kids through a pandemic, a climate crisis and with police brutality in the news? That's the question at the center of Emily Raboteau's new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against 'The Apocalypse.' In today's episode, Raboteau tells Here & Now's Celeste Headlee what she learned about radical care, resilience and interdependence through the people she met in her community and in her travels, and how she thinks about parenting through personal and global hardships.
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Colm Tóibín's long-anticipated sequel to 'Brooklyn' is 'Long Island' May 15, 2024

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The writer Colm Tóibín says he never meant to write a sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn. But an image came to him years later, of his protagonist from that book suddenly finding out her husband has had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy — and so he followed the story in Long Island. In today's episode, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tóibín about revisiting Eilis Lacey in her 40s and upending her domestic life.
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Chanel Miller's new children's book follows lost socks in New York City May 14, 2024

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Chanel Miller's first book was a critically acclaimed memoir about her sexual assault and the following trial. But she always wanted to write and illustrate books for kids. In today's episode, Miller tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how moving to New York City and ingraining herself into her community inspired Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, a new book about a young girl and her BFF traversing their neighborhood to return socks that were left behind at the laundromat to their owners.
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Rachel Khong's new novel explores who gets to be 'Real Americans' May 13, 2024

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Real Americans, the new novel by Rachel Khong, spans generations and decades within a family to understand the ongoing struggle to make sense of race, class and identity in the United States. Like with any family story, there are secrets and confrontations and difficult conversations, too; that desire to fill in the gaps about where we come from and how it has shaped our lineage is at the center of today's interview with Khong and NPR's Juana Summers.
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For Mother's Day, two books that tackle motherhood May 10, 2024

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This weekend is Mother's Day, a good occasion to reflect on the art of parenting. First, comedian Glenn Boozan speaks to Celeste Headlee on Here and Now about her book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You, a joke-book that uses examples of bad parenting from the animal kingdom to soothe those who might be worried about their own child-raising skills.Then, an interview from our archives: a 1989 chat with Amy Tan on All Things Considered about her novel The Joy Luck Club, the story of four Chinese American families living in San Francisco inspired by Tan's experience as a child of immigrants.
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In 'Soil,' Camille Dungy weaves together gardening, race and motherhood May 09, 2024

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For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Melissa Block about the journey that gardening put her on, and what it's revealed about who gets to write about the environment.
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Two mothers clash over integration in 'What's Mine & Yours' May 08, 2024

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At the center of author Naima Coster's novel What's Mine & Yours are two struggling mothers. Jade is a Black single mother who is trying to provide a better life for her son, and Lacey May is a white mother who is trying to give her daughters the life she never had. Their stories will intertwine over decades, starting with when Lacey May opposes the integration of her daughters' school – the same school Jade is trying to get her son into. Coster told NPR's Audie Cornish that fiction gives us a window into other people's lives but that does not mean we have to condone their actions.
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Poet Ocean Vuong shares his grief in 'Time Is A Mother' May 07, 2024

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Poet Ocean Vuong's collection,Time Is A Mother, is about his grief after losing family members. Vuong told NPR's Rachel Martin that time is different now that he has lost his mother: "when I look at my life since she died in 2019, I only see two days: Today when she's not here, and the big, big yesterday when I had her."
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'The Three Mothers' who paved the way for three extraordinary men May 06, 2024

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It's almost Mother's Day – so today, we learn about the women who raised some of history's most important men in The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation. Author Anna Malaika Tubbs told 1A's Jenn White that history is often told by and about men, but knowing these women's stories - "taking their lives from the margins and putting them in the center" - is just as important. As Tubbs notes, "If they'd never had these famous sons, they still were worthy of being seen."
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Amy Tan opens up about her birding obsession in 'The Backyard Bird Chronicles' May 02, 2024

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Author Amy Tan spends hours in her backyard, watching and drawing birds go about their business. Her new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, is full of essays and illustrations about her connection to these small creatures. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about how an overwhelming sense of gloom from racism and political division in 2016 forced her to find a way to immerse herself in nature, and how her obsessive hobby led to a pretty high bird food budget – and mealworms in her fridge.

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