Rating: 
Summary: Mostly nostalgia
Review: Shirley Jackson's wicked humour (don't miss the story of "Charles," for example) kept me laughing, and it was especially refreshing to step into a (let's face it, far more realistic) world where children could have a score of imaginary playmates (the family of Mrs Ellenoy), a son could be a bit of a discipline problem, the baby could eat a spider ... and no one ran to the self-help aisle or shrink just because kids were kids.I had assumed that this was a biographical work, with the adventures just a bit exagerrated, until I read Shirley's (excellent) biography "Private Demons." Somehow, the stories were not as funny when I came to know that some of them were fiction, merely based on the children's traits. This tale will never bore, and will give anyone a good dose of laughter. Perhaps those who now have children of the age which Shirley's were then will relax a bit realising that raising children was never a joy ride - but there is no need, today, to make it more difficult than it has to be.
Rating: 
Summary: A funny look at family life in the 40's. Still a great read!
Review: This book entertained me as a kid and as an adult. I'll be sharing it with my kids. The book focuses on the life of a family growing up in the 40's. It is written by the great writer, Shirley Jackson. The comedy rivals Erma Bombeck's and the stories are funny, heartwarming and clever.
Rating:
Summary: Demonic children
Review: This is Shirley Jackson's hilarious account of her struggles raising an expanding family of children. She is delightfully unsentimental in her account of family life, and any harassed parent will recognise the situations she finds herself in. For instance, what parent hasn't suffered the anguish of trying to eat in a restaurant with young children, how well Shirely Jackson sums of the sheer horror of that situation, among many others. I didn't think there could ever be a book about child-raising as funny as Jean Kerr's 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies' but this one runs it a very close second.
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