Tiger Babies Strike Back: How I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom but Could Not Be Turned to the Dark Side
Novelist Keltner (The Dim Sum of All Things, 2004) jumps on the Tiger Mother bandwagon with what is at its best a lighthearted look at growing up Chinese American. Packed with lots of saucy attitude, Keltner’s memoir reveals the pressure cooker that is life as a “tiger baby” and refutes much of the dogma related in Amy Chua’s controversial best-seller, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). The book fumbles into incoherence at times, however, as it vascillates from cultural commentary to mothering memoir, and some of the content is repetitive. Keltner’s habit of dropping casual asides about her family can also be disconcerting as there seems to be little groundwork provided in some cases to support her opinions. Readers thus are buffeted from some truly amusing anecdotes about organizing play dates to questionable assertions about family dynamics, which makes for an uneven reading experience. However, it cannot be discounted that Kelner does challenge what was sold as prevailing orthodoxy among Chinese American families only two short years ago, and, as an attempt at literary balance, Tiger Babies is well worth a look. --Colleen Mondor