I remember being the “Class Mom.”  My job was to plan the class cocktail party at another parent’s home, arrange the class holiday parties while dealing with allergies and various food requirements, plead for volunteers, and field parent complaints, both big and small.  And, of course, to be the repository of all the parent gossip – “She welcomes her husband home every evening wearing nothing but an apron and holding a tray of martinis!” (a tidbit I did not share with my husband), or “Can you believe she served guacamole and chips at a cocktail party?” (um, yeah), or “Have you noticed that Britney is always sick when there’s an exam so she can get the answers from classmates and take the test the next day?” (Note: Britney ended up at an Ivy League college, indicating a clever Ivy League-worthy-plan on her part) or “Mary orders in all the time, those kids have hamburgers from Mansion every night!” (which, in truth, I received with more envy than horror).  I sort of miss those days.

In Laurie Gelman’s debut novel, Class Mom, Jennifer Dixon, is the class mom who “volunteers” for the position in her son’s kindergarten class at the William H. Taft Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri.  With two daughters already in college, Jennifer is an older mom, as well, and knows that whatever concerns the thirty-something parents in the class have, in most cases they don’t amount to a hill of beans.  This gives her a certain creative freedom in her approach to the job and in her communications with her fellow parents.  She’s acerbic without being cruel and she’s a hoot.

Gelman gives each parent in Miss Ward’s kindergarten class a distinct and well-developed personality.  In addition to few “normal parents”, there are the two mom friends – one from “Manhattan” and her local hanger-on friend. There’s the hot dad married to the less than hot mom- causing lots of speculation, the mom obsessed with her son’s food allergies requiring nut free food at parent-only events, the boyfriend from the past and his on-again off-again partner, and the trouble-making class mom wanabee (doesn’t every class have one?).

Stories about school events, mean kids, mud runs, flirt texting,  grown-up friendships, and small-town intrigues are nicely developed and relatable, no matter where you live.  Gelman punctuates her narrative with Jennifer’s clever emails to the class parents and the parents’ often outlandish replies. The emails set the scene for the action to come.  Gelman treats each character with respect, but never fails to point out the ridiculousness of some of their concerns where their kids are concerned. In this book, the kids are alright. It’s an entertaining, sometimes hilarious, read.

Class Mom
Laurie Gelman