Browsing the Bookshelf

by     

Debbie W. Wilson

                Children  spill food.  They play in the sandbox just before you have to go to church.  They say things in front of the preacher or your mother-in-law that you didn't know they had heard.  They have to use the bathroom just as you have gotten back on the interstate after taking a wrong exit.

          So how does a mother keep from blowing up?

SHE'S GONNA BLOW!

By Julie Ann Barnhill

Harvest House, 0-7369-0433-6, PB, 272 pages, $

                Barnhill confronts the anger women feel toward their children through the metaphor of  volcanoes.  In a warm, friendly style that includes many personal illustrations, she explores the reasons mothers explode  toward their children and offers strategies to conquer that anger.   

                Her informal style draws readers as if she is discussing the problem with them over a cup of tea.  Having struggled with anger that came close to child abuse, she offers help with empathy and humor to other Christian mothers with the same guilty secret.

                 Her strategies for overcoming eruptions could be strengthened by dealing with misbehavior before it drives parents to fury.  Her appendix  on child development seems weak on behavioral expectations, but her appendices on depression and resources are helpful.  The book could help anyone struggling with anger though written for mothers.  It would make a good resource for a church library.   Three appendices.           (appeared in Church Libraries, fall 2001)                                                                       

Search this site