As Hillary Clinton’s run for the White House may or may not be winding down, let’s consider GRACE FOR PRESIDENT, a charming and instructive book for kids written by Kelly DiPucchio with jazzy pictures by LeUyen Pham.

I read recently that it’s only here in the US that people ask “what do you do?” as an opening conversational gambit. Instead, at gatherings in Rome or Paris, for instance, people are more likely to engage you in conversation about the latest political controversy or art exhibition than to inquire about your work. The end of an evening might arrive without any new acquaintances having the slightest idea of what one “does.” but a lot about what she thinks. How refreshing.

Just in case you’ve been living your complicated lives and haven’t been paying attention to the latest literary scandals, here’s what’s been happening. During the last month, two critically admired memoirs - one the gritty account by young woman detailing her life as a gang member in South Central L.A., the other the tale of a child suckled by wolves as she hid out in a forest after her parents were spirited away by the Nazis - have been exposed as hoaxes. Never happened. Throw into this mix the very real and truly harrowing accounts by a father and son of the boy’s meth addiction and you’ve got a sense of what’s current in memoir land.

If you despair of ever getting the time to read a full length book, even a fluffy one, but if articles about what Katie does to turn Tom on leave you slightly nauseated, consider BRAIN, CHILD: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers.  Here (at last) is a publication aimed at women with children that dares to assume we have minds that have not atrophied, that we are capable of probing deeply into issues of concern to us, our families, and the  families of those around us.

If you’re reading this column, it’s a pretty sure thing that you take reading and books for granted as a familiar part of your life. You buy books for yourself and for your kids. Chances are also pretty good that you read to your kids as a matter of course.

What exactly do you want from a novel? Should it mirror your world, reflect it back to you? Or do you want it to take you somewhere else, to a life you wouldn’t otherwise know?

For me, the best anti-princess books are those that don’t try too hard, that make their point subtly, with the stories and pictures coming first, the “message,” resting underneath. Two recent charmers are Nancy Coffelt’s Fred Stays With Me, with illustrations by Tricia Tusa, and Holly Keller’s Nosy Rosie.

To tell you the truth, I’ve always had a bit of trouble with the name I gave this column: “Viewed and Reviewed.” One doesn’t just “view” a book, after all, in order to “review” it.

You’ve gotta love a book whose funniest sections deal with vasectomies and poop. That’s Amanda Lamb’s hilarious Smotherhood, her comic celebration of the things that drive all working mothers mad.

We interrupt the pattern of this column – books about working moms, their issues, and their kids – to bring you something different, a book about the spiritual journey of a 30-something woman who has no children and doesn’t want any.

At the tail end of July, The New York Times “Style” section featured a long piece on the Junie B Jones series of books for young readers. It seems that like everything else about parenting these days Junie B. is controversial, so much so that parents get really exercised about her – they’re either ecstatic or vitriolic about books written in the voice of a five year old. They either love them for amusing their kids or detest them as if the books are ruining them for life.

Now I know that Mommy Track’d has a mommy lit section on its bookshelf. I know, too, that the management of Mommy Track’d happens to harbor a weakness for chick lit. But as the site’s resident reviewer, I’ve pledged to be honest. So let me be blunt.

When a novel is told in the first person, our impulse is to sympathize with the narrator. She is, after all, the consciousness propelling the story. But she isn’t always its conscience, and that means we shouldn’t always trust the teller of the tale. This is especially tricky when the narrator is bitter and angry at the world because her two-day old baby daughter has just died.