All Moms Go to Heaven

by Dean Hughes

I'm not sure where I picked up this book, I probably thought it looked cute. I didn't realize at first that it was written by a promient LDS member who has penned a lot of popular LDS historical fiction and children's books. Well. It started out pretty good, the author describing a summer he spent at home caring for his children while his wife worked on her degree. The chaos, funny moments and realizations about how difficult it can be spending all day with small children were familiar. He seemed to feel he'd earned his badge as stand-in "mom" and refreshingly, admitted to his own mistakes in parenting as well. But there's not much depth (even for a book that's so short) and the amusing conversations with his children are nothing compared to a favorite of mine, Conversations with Adam and Natasha. And before you get halfway through, the book starts to go downhill. It's still nice enough. Full of stories about mothering skills and incidents surrounding the children and women in his extended family- his grandchildren, his own wife as a mother and grandmother. There was too much of him being careful to name every person mentioned, give them credit, and excuse where he might sound critical, than actual storytelling. In the end, it reads more like an essay or a written "talk" than a proper book.

Rating: 2/5        95 pages, 2005