The most popular question any pregnant woman is asked -- aside from "When are you due?" -- has got to be "Are you having a girl or a boy?" When author Andrea Buchanan, already a mom to a little girl, was pregnant with her second child, she marveled at the response of friends and total strangers alike: "Boys are wonderful," "Boys are so much better than girls," "Boys love their mothers differently than girls." This constant refrain led her to explore the issue herself, with help from her fellow writers and moms, many of whom had had the same experience. The result is "It's a Boy, a wide-ranging, often humorous, and very honest collection of essays about the experience of mothering boys. Taking on topics like aggression ("The Bully's Mother"), mothering a teenaged boy ("Shapeshifter"), wishing for a daughter but getting a son ("Breaking the Curse"), the stories reflect the myriad ways these women have mothered sons and come to love the experience in ways that may be different, but no less satisfying, than mothering girls.
