Mama Lama Ding Dong

by Ayun Halliday

Twenty years ago, a mother named Erma Bombeck brought the suburban family out of the closet -- dirty laundry and all. Her candid, hilarious accounts of family life became more than mere books; they became a philosophy. Meet Ayun Halliday, a new generation's urban Bombeck. Creator of the underground parenting magazine The East Village Inky, Halliday's words and drawings detail the quirks and everyday travails of a young Brooklyn family, warts and all. Honest in her parenting foibles and fixed in her opinions on public breastfeeding and the perfect Halloween costume, Halliday validates the complex, absurd wonderousness of being the unpaid caregiver of small children and celebrates the stranger-than-fiction, real-life existence of one modern family.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Ayun Halliday is the Chief Primatologist of the long running, award-winning East Village Inky zine and author of the self-mocking autobiographies No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late, The Big Rumpus  Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste, and Job Hopper.

She collaborated with illustrators Dan Santat on the picture book Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo, and Paul Hoppe on Peanut, a graphic novel for young adults. Luddite vagabonds may remember her as the author of the analog guidebook, The Zinester's Guide to NYC.  

Those seeking inspiration and a creative push (or creative solace) should check out Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto and its interactive companion Creative, Not Famous Activity Book: An Interactive Idea Generator for Small Potatoes & Others Who Want to Get Their Ayuss in Gear.

Ayun's latest book is Panther City: Tales of a Gen X Grade 3 Class Project Run Amok, an adult comedy of elementary school manners, illustrated by her then-8-year-old penpal, Leni Yow-Fairs.

Ayun is also an improviser and theater maker. More about that here: theater-of-the-apes.com/

She lives in East Harlem with the playwright Greg Kotis.

Reviews

[Keris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An improvisational theatre performer and fully-fledged arty hippie type, Ayun is the epitome of laid-back motherhood. Her relaxed attitude to germs, mess and stress is very refreshing! In this memoir (her fifth, but the first to be published in the UK), she talks about her unique approach to motherhood, her life before and after children- and some rather intimate details of

To read the rest of this review (and more!), please visit Trashionista

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

W38.