Review of “When I Was a Pie,” by M. L. Farb
Reading this book was like simultaneously reliving my childhood and peering through a portal into my future family.
An entertaining, inspiring, and insightful read - especially for young parents!
Reading "When I Was a Pie" was like simultaneously reliving my childhood and peering through a portal into my future family. I found myself laughing at the host of similarities to my youth, reflecting on how I could emulate the Farb family's strengths while learning from their mistakes, and reading the funniest anecdotes out loud to my wife.
In this fun and easy-to read book, M. L. Farb brilliantly and delightfully captures the joys and travails of raising six rambunctious children. Prepare to laugh and cry and laugh again (or maybe cringe) at the vignettes she paints, from helping her husband graduate in electrical engineering while raising two kids in a one-bedroom cinderblock apartment [the same complex my sister was living in two decades later when I read this book!), to drilling a hole in a bathroom door to rescue a trapped two-year-old (on April Fool’s Day, no less).
This book can serve as both a one-time light read and as a reference “how-to” manual for raising a joyful, Christ-centered home. Besides the engaging narratives and delightful poems, it offers a collection of “baking tips” (marriage and parenting lessons born from experience), “ingredients” (insights about key family principles such as prayer, respect, and freedom), and “bonus ingredients” (practical tips ranging from to-do-list advice to quick-and-easy cooking recipes). The book concludes with an appendix of striking and beautiful poems worshiping Jesus Christ.
Reading this book inspired me to be more present with my infant daughter, more spontaneous with my wife, more creative with my thoughts, and more grateful in my outlook. It also has motivated me to write more in my journal to preserve my own precious family memories. I highly recommend it!
How I heard about the book:
Maria (M.L.) Farb is a member of LDSPMA, the organization that I was the operations manager for from 2020 to 2024. She posted in LDSPMA’s community Facebook group asking for ARC readers of her book, and I signed up.
ML Farb is the Whitney Award Finalist and SPFBO Semi-Finalist author of noblebright fantasy and retellings of less known fairytales.