Aunt Jean's Blueprint for Happiness
Check out Elizabeth Austin’s article on Jean (Please Don’t Eat the Daisies) Kerr and the genre of domestic life....
Once I'd gobbled my way through Kerr's slim oeuvre, I went looking eagerly for another writer just as good. Decades later, I'm still looking. No one since has managed to write about the domestic scene with Mrs. Kerr's pitch-perfect balance of wit, warmth, and intelligence. Instead, the mother/writers of the half-century have focused on the anxieties and stresses of parenting. Personally, I don't need anybody to tell me how hard it is to bring up a child; trust me, I already know. What I really need is someone who will refocus my attention on the sheer, unalloyed delights of sharing your life with babies--and teenagers, too.