Anyone read the book My Bonus Mom: Taking the Step out of Stepmom

[LittleBlessings]

Anyone read the book My Bonus Mom: Taking the Step out of Stepmom http://www.amazon.com/My-Bonus-Mom-Taking-Stepmom/dp/1589850815. If you have read it what did you think? I am thinking about buying this book

Edited by LittleBlessings - 2/8/12 at 1:42am

[BriasMommy]

I haven't read it, but I totally jumped on the tip and just added it to my Amazon cart! I'll let you know what I think!

[VocalMinority]

Haven't read it and my youngest SC is too old for it.  But I was curious.  While there are positive reviews about it on Amazon, too, this one caught my attention:

"As an almost-stepmom to a four-year-old, I was really excited to get this book in our home to help explain this new relationship and term to him. Unfortunately, the book isn't what we were expecting. The book highlights dad's anger at the divorce (red face; lots of anger in the words and illustrations) and portrays the children's mother as a frumpy lonely woman, with dad's new wife as the stereotypical younger, spunkier woman. While I get the intent ("New stepmoms are a positive thing! Fun!"), it just fed into stereotypical situations, and didn't at all send the message we were hoping. Sorry, we returned this book and never read it to our boy."

The review makes me think of the movie Stepmom (Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts), which inconveniently came out when my ex and I were fairly recently broken up, with two little boys and he started shacking up with a 19-year-old.  It was silly, but I refused to watch the movie simply because of the overall plot:  Kids learn to quit being sad about their broken home and to be happy for Dad, when he finds a younger, prettier, less demanding woman than their Mom.  (Of course, in the movie Mom conveniently gets out of the way, by dying!)

I'm always interested in how books handle tough topics for young kids, like divorce or death.  Rarely have I seen one that does it well.  It's so easy to be pretty and simplistic, which is insulting to what kids are actually going through, IMO.  So I'll be interested to hear what you guys think of this book.