Great With Child:
Letters To A Young Mother
Great With Child: Letters to a Young Mother (Nonfiction, W. W. Norton, 2006) is Beth Ann’s third book, a collection of letters written to a former student who unexpectedly found herself pregnant. “Here are modern letters written in an old-fashioned way,” writes the publisher, “not as hasty emails but more slowly and filtered through the sensibility of a fearless, gifted poet.”
This classic motherhood memoir, recently released as an audiobook, is praised in The Atlantic's 2023 article, "What to Read When You're Pregnant."
“Superb.”
“A reflective, transformative book.”
“I read Great with Child at one sitting, crying and laughing throughout. Beth Ann Fennelly has written an instant classic, filled with humor and wisdom, a necessary and beautiful book which will be cherished not only by an endless line of mothers-to- be, but by every woman who wants to remember what it was really like to become a new mother.”
“The writing is at once rhythmic, exuberant, and passionate. To enjoy it, one most definitely doesn’t have to be pregnant, just someone who revels in richly told stories.”
“Give this book to anyone who is “great with child”; she will be eternally grateful. Fennelly’s missives are alternately moving, funny, and practical, with an unusual honesty about just how hard it is to be a young mother.”
“By turns poetic and funny, dreamy and direct, Great with Child might be the best book ever to give for a baby shower.”
“The themes will strike a cord with any mother or mother-to- be. This elegiac tome captures motherhood with candid finesse.”
“This book sang its heart out to me, and I clapped my hands in time.”