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“She is my mother and the changing moons My brethren, and with them I wax and wane. Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth? Nothing can make me other than I am.” Oedipus the King by Sophocles translated by F. Storr
I love my mother. From the way that we both find ourselves driven to write in the wee hours of the night to the shape of our noses, we share many similarities. I rely on her for so much even in my adult life. In fact she proofread the article that you are reading right now about Jack Gantos’ latest riveting book for adolescents, The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs, available in May from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Jack Gantos, who met my mother stated the following about our maternal relationship, “The similarities that struck me were the obvious ones: you are both linguistically quick, immensely enthusiastic, determined to succeed in a field of your choice, fully invested in each other's success and at |
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ease with one another.” As I read his latest book my own relationship with my mother (which is extremely healthy in comparison to the characters in the story) lingered in the back of my mind. Most adolescent readers will be surprised when they find themselves thinking that they actually have a pretty “normal” relationship with their own mothers compared to the extremes that are portrayed in this intriguing text. Jack Gantos, Newberry Prize winning author, hinted at the origins of his newest book by recounting a story that his mother told him based a legend from his own family history. Gantos described his relationship with his own mother to me, “I think my relationship with her was typical. I wanted to please her. I wanted her to please me. Everyone wants to be happy, but happiness is not always the result of parenting, just as happiness is not always the dominant emotion when you are a parent. She was always dependable, and still is. But I was eager to push on when I was a |
