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Hello Mothers of the world.

I don’t know about Spain or Costa Rica or Australia or Japan, but in the United States it is Mother’s Day on Sunday. I am sending every mother I know, and love, a greeting and a few quotes about mothers which I thought were nice (I particularly liked Aristotle’s take on it).

Some of you may be new mothers, some of you may be old(er) mothers, and at least one of you may be an expectant mother. We are all tied by a common thread and so,

Happy Mother’s Day!

God could not be everywhere and therefore he made Mothers
~old Jewish Proverb~

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart – a heart so large that everybody’s joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.
~Mark Twain~

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
~Elizabeth Stone~

Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate.
~Charlotte Gray~

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
~Aristotle~

The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.
~Henry Ward Beecher~

You may have tangible wealth untold;/Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold./Richer than I you can never be -/I had a mother who read to me.
~Strickland Gillilan~

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
~William Makepeace Thackeray~

A mother understands what a child does not say.
~Jewish Proverb~

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
~Spanish Proverb~

~When a woman is twenty, a child deforms her; when she is thirty, he preserves her; and when forty, he makes her young again.~
Leon Blum

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same; and most mothers kiss and scold together.
~Pearl S. Buck~

And one added by my daughter’s mother-in-law:

Children hold their mother’s hand for a while, but her heart forever.
~Anonymous~

I hope all of you mothers do something nice for yourselves this weekend.

My review of Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skullduggery by Jennie Erin Smith is up at the Internet Review of Books.  I loved this book. It’s full of larger-than-life personalities involved in under-the-table activities.

“With a cast of characters straight out of a Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard novel, Jennie Erin Smith takes her readers on a wild ride into the world of reptile trafficking. And, yes, much of her new book, STOLEN WORLD: A TALE OF REPTILES, SMUGGLERS, AND SKULLDUGGERY,  takes place in Florida, and it’s all true.”  To read the rest of the review click here.

Apparently some other reviewers have hinted they don’t entirely believe in the veracity of the book. According to Smith, in a discussion on her facebook page, a few reviewers have suggested that she “embellished” it. They warn, at the very least, that her book be read with a skeptical eye because of her sources. To me, this is a bit like saying that Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate stories should be questioned because of their sources. Perhaps those reviewers live in a world where they don’t bump up against the sorts of shady people in her book.

I happen to live in a place where cads and misanthropes far outnumber your regular citizenry. Maybe it’s because this Caribbean coastline is a tropical playground, maybe because cads and misanthropes always look for the easiest way to survive— make a living seems a bit of a stretch—think no central heating needed. Really, no house needed. Whatever the reason, they are here. So, I have no trouble believing her book is true.

I also note that Stolen World was published by Crown publishing. As she says in her rebuttal there were three sets of legal teams that went over the material, sometimes insisting on changes, or pseudonyms, because of legal issues. Surely the reviewers were aware of this. Or, as Smith put it:    “… I do think they would have to be aware that any nonfic book would have serious legal vetting/review when the sources involved are 1. alive, 2. named, and 3. feisty as all hell.