I'm a little better than halfway through this, and I'm waiting to see if the balance will ever shift away from women who are SO FLUMMOXED by having a boy, and then marvel at their boys who act like, well, boys, but are still remarkably gentle and kind. On the whole, I like personal essays, but there's not a lot of diversity of opinion (or even socioeconomic class) represented in this collection, so it seems like the same essays over and over.

To be fair, I may just be grumpy with this book because the binding broke and the text block split in two after I'd turned only a couple of pages, and it's hard to juggle while they're both stuck to the cover.

[edit] Finished. Opinion unchanged, despite having a friend in Tech Services fix the binding for me. ( )

Like many books about the experience of motherhood, this is a compilation of different mothers talking about their experiences. In this case, the common thread is the challenges and joys of raising boys. (There is a "girl" version of the book as well). The essays range from mother's discussing their disappointments on finding out they were having a son instead of a daughter to the advantages of raising a son versus raising a daughter. The mothers are at all different points in their motherhood -- some have teenagers, some with toddlers, some with grade schoolers. As with any compilation with essays written by different writers, the reader will find they like some more than others. But, overall, as a mother of a son, I enjoyed reading the viewpoints of other women raising this most "alien" of species to me! ( )

http://dhamel.typepad.com/book_blog/2006/01/its_a_boy_edite.html
( )

It's a Boy is a collection of inspired and thought-provoking essays about motherhood, from the perspective of women who are raising sons.

Having been raised in an all-girl family during my growing up years, I'm still trying to make sense of the world of boys.

What I love about this collection of essays is that it sidesteps the schmaltzy and it surprises the reader with the unexpected, like Jennifer Margulis' incredibly honest account of how she was able to heal from her abortion after the birth of her son.

Some of my other favorite mother-writers have contributed other essays to this collection, too: Stephany Aulenback, Karen Bender, Kathryn Black, Robin Bradford, Gayle Brandeis, Faulkner Fox, Katie Allison Granju, Ona Gritz, Gwendolen Gross, Melanie Lynn Hauser, Marrit Ingman, Susan Ito, Suzanne Kamata, Katie Kaput, Jennifer Lauck, Caroline Leavitt, Jody Mace, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Catherine Newman, Sue O'Doherty, Marjorie Osterhout, Jamie Pearson, Lisa Peet, Jodi Picoult, Maura Rhodes, Rochelle Shapiro, Kate Staples, and Marion Winik.