Home Game

April 13, 2009
After the birth of his first child, bestselling writer Lewis (Moneyball
) felt he was a stranger in a strange land, puzzled at the gap between what he thought he should be feeling and what he actually felt. While he expected to be overcome by joy, he often felt puzzled; expecting to feel worried over a child's illness or behavior, he often felt indifferent. Lewis attempts to capture the triumphs, failures, humor, frustration and exhilaration of being a new father during the first year of each of his three children's lives. In one especially hilarious moment, Lewis is in a hotel pool in Bermuda distantly observing his children. When some older boys start teasing his oldest daughter, the youngest daughter, three years old at the time, lets fly a string of profanities at the top of her lungs. The boys retreat and then regroup for a second attack; when they return, she lets fly another string and tells them that she has peed in the pool, causing the boys to go away. All the while, Lewis watches from afar, too embarrassed to claim this youngster as his own but also proud that she has handled herself so smartly. Although Lewis is correct that his fatherhood moments might be more interesting to him than to anyone else, his reflections capture both the unease and the excitement that fatherhood brings.

April 1, 2009
Lewis (The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, 2006, etc.) updates and expands his Slate series on the business of parenting.

After the birth of each of his three children, the author promptly drew up notes on how he tried manfully to fill the demanding job of fatherhood. As wife and family CEO Tabitha provided guidance, the generally inattentive and distracted Lewis recorded the nuttiness of raising daughters Quinn and Dixie and their little brother Walker. It's an engaging journal that selectively details how Dad grew up as well, as caution replaced airy hope and emotion displaced rationality. The first child was, for a while, subjected to the vicissitudes of living in Paris and Gallic notions of childrearing; the French experience seems to have made her a cool analyst of any situation. Back stateside, a second girl was born and sibling rivalry erupted. In California, the couple's third child arrived, and Dad elucidates the effects of scant sleep, management of Mom's postpartum melancholy and infant Walker's frightening illness."If you want to feel the way you're meant to feel about the new baby," writes Lewis,"you need to do the grunt work." Only with eternal vigilance can fathers insure the well-being and personal development of their progeny. Lewis also follows the trail explored by Dr. Cosby and others investigators of fatherhood, and he includes a riff on his personal surgery—no more children are expected in the Lewis household.

Brief, clever and frank—a good gift for Father's Day.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 11, 2009
When best-selling author Lewis (The Blind Side) became a father, he discovered a huge disparity between what he was really feeling and what he was expected to feel. This honest, moving, and often humorous memoir records the aftermath of the birth of each of his three children and gives an eye-opening account of how one couple decided to split parenting duties in the modern age. Delightful and unexpected, Lewis's experiences should reassure other fathers they are not alone in navigating 21st-century gender roles. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/09.]-Elizabeth Brinkley, Granite Falls, WA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.