Small Animals

"Small Animals interrogates how we weigh risk as parents, how we judge one another's parenting and what the costs might be—not just to parents, but to children, too—of a culture of constant surveillance."—New York Times Book Review

"[Small Animals] is a funny, smart, and terrifying study of how irrational fear motivates so many cynical, small, and closed-minded actions in today’s America. But it’s also hopeful that, through reason and empathy, parents and non-parents alike can work to reduce this fearfulness and live in communities driven by compassion and a shared belief in the common good."—LA Review of Books

"Everyone tells you parenthood will change you for the better. But few parents describe how the current, high-strung culture of parenting can erode your confidence, feed your worst impulses, and force you back into some regressive, second-guessing state you haven't experienced since you were a preteen. Kim Brooks offers an engrossing, insightful examination of the countless absurdities, identity crises, and obnoxious obstacles that come with raising children at a time when wisdom and perspective are the rarest qualities around. Small Animals is a beautifully told, harrowing story with a clear moral that all parents should take to heart: This job is very hard. Forgive yourself."—Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly columnist for New York Magazine and author of How to Be a Person in the World

"One otherwise ordinary day, Kim Brooks found herself accused, by virtue of a parking-lot stranger's cell-phone surveillance, of being a criminally negligent parent. The story of what followed, smoothly interspersed with cultural reflections, anecdotes, and bracingly honest, often droll, introspection, is both a can't-put-it-down narrative and a sharp diagnosis of the fears, guilt, and costs to both parents and children of the contemporary fixation on keeping kids safe. Written in a voice that is crisp and unpretentious but dives deep, Small Animals is a pleasure both to read as a memoir and to mull over for its cultural insights."—Susan Bordo, author of The Destruction of Hillary Clinton and The Flight to Objectivity

Small Animals is a funny, empathetic, and eloquent report from deep inside the bunker of our national anxiety disorder. Profoundly thoughtful and richly detailed, it shows us how we got here and offers moms and dads some guidance, as well as some moral support, as to how it might be possible to find a way out of our self-inflicted reign of terror.”—William Deresiewicz, New York Times bestselling author of Excellent Sheep

"This is a surprisingly moving account of what is a fairly common experience, delivering readers much food for thought on the multilayered issues of how much control parents should have over their children's lives and how much input parents should offer other parents . . . An engaging, enlightening story that reveals the potential harm parents and society can do to children when they don't allow them any freedoms at all."—Kirkus Reviews

"Parents will flock to read the first nonfiction book from Brooks . . . Her engaging account of life as a modern-day parent blends memoir and her research from interviews with other parents, psychiatrists, and parenting experts to provide a deeper understanding of the ways fear and judgment affect the limits and freedoms we give ourselves and our children."—Booklist (starred review)

"A disturbingly, ultimately affirming look at why parenting in the contemporary United States is defined by fear."—Publishers Weekly