2 out of 4 stars
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The day Momma Made Me Dance is a short children’s book by Patrice Shavone Brown that is marketed on Amazon towards ages 1 – 14 (or grade level P – 7). The book is partially geared towards children but also contains a “how-to” or discussion piece for parents. This story focuses on child disciple and aims to differentiate between discipline and abuse. I am writing this review as honestly as possible without letting my personal views on disciplinary methods cloud my vision.
The first parts of the book include dedication, foreword, preface, and “about the author” sections. Normally in a review, I wouldn’t even mention these, but in this case, they bring both context and meaning to the rest of the book. The book is dedicated to the author’s late mother, who raised Patrice the same way she is raising her children, as a single parent. The forward is a piece of text written by the author’s young son essentially saying he is proud of what she has written. I think this was placed in the book to show solidarity with her children despite the content. Finally, the preface and the “about the author” sections state a bit further who this book is for, what influenced the writing of the book, and that the purpose is to “get you to recognize the difference between abuse and discipline.” This portion is seemingly written for the parent who will be reading the book to their children.
The middle section of the book is geared towards younger children. There are alternating pages of short text and full pages of images describing that text. The story is about a young girl who isn’t following the rules and who pushes her mother to the point where she needs to discipline her. After the punishment (which takes place with a belt and makes the girl cry, run, dance, and prance) is concluded, the little girl states how she has now learned the rules and will presumably adhere to them from now on.
Finally, there is another section at the end geared towards the parents which states what discipline is and delineates it from abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual) and neglect. It ends with a series of questions a parent can ask their children to foster discussions about discipline and abuse.
There are a few things about the book that I enjoyed. I think, in general, the intent behind this book is noble. Regardless of one's views on disciplinary methods, a book that teaches you that breaking the rules will result in consequences, can be beneficial. What I appreciated the most about the book, however, were the images. The characters were extremely well illustrated. The cheeky girl breaking the rules in these images made me chuckle several times throughout the story. With great illustrations like this, it is easy for children to relate to the characters and consequently relate to the message within the book.
There are several things I disliked about this book. First, there were many grammatical errors throughout the book. These were found both in the section geared towards the children and that towards the parents. Not only were they grammatically incorrect, but many of the sentences were extremely awkward to read. Second, as a parent that often reads to young children, the mixed audience goal of the author (messages to the parents and a story for the children) fell short. If I am sitting down to read to my kids, I will likely will skip all the foreword/afterword material as it is of little interest to them and wouldn’t capture their attention. The only way this would work is if the parent read it on their own and only ever read the middle portion to the children. Finally, and what I disliked the most about this book, was that is wasn’t very clear in its own message of drawing the line between discipline and abuse. In one sentence it states, “when you punish your children it is okay to use talk, timeout in a corner and even a belt or switch.” Two pages later the author states that “abuse is when children are beaten with cords, sticks, burned, punched and treated inhumanely.” I think the line between the two is poorly drawn by the author and by her own definitions, using a switch or a belt on a child constitutes abuse (again, by her own definition).
Since the book lacked professional editing, contradicted itself, and had an awkward presentation, I give this book 2 out of 4 stars. To be clear, this rating was made entirely with the aim/presentation of the book in mind and not all in conjunction with my personal opinions on physical discipline. I didn’t give this book only one star as I genuinely believe that its message, that actions bear consequences, is a good one for young children to have in a literary form. If you are a firm believer in discipline and are looking for kid’s books, this may be for you. If you are 100% against discipline that manifests itself in a physical form, you should probably steer clear of this story.
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The Day Momma Made Me Dance
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