I just read the new book out by Catholic homeschooling mom-author Alice Gunther, Haystack Full of Needles:  A Catholic Home Educator's Guide to Socialization, and I loved it.  I found it very inspiring and encouraging. 

I ordered it immediately, as soon as I heard about it, but I was afraid to read it at first, because sometimes when I read even very excellent things written by super-together, super-holy Catholic homeschooling moms, I end up feeling not so much inspired as overwhelmed by my own inadequacy, and the impossibility of EVER creating a home school environment for my children that looks like that.    (Of course, I know that none of the well-known Catholic homeschooling-mom-blogger/authors see themselves as super-together or super-holy -  they are all very humble and quick to admit to their own weaknesses and failures.  I know intellectually that they probably feel just like I do a lot of the time.  But you know, as Rachel is always reminding me - both on- and off-blog -  it's hard sometimes to keep your eyes on your own paper...but that's another whole blog entry some later time...)

ANYWAY, what I found to my great delight was an extremely encouraging and helpful guide for moms like me.  Despite my mostly-successful and enjoyable experiences leading support groups and teaching childbirth, I am at base pretty much an introvert.  Not that I can't function well with other people, but that it tires me emotionally to do so too much, AND as a result I probably don't seek out as many social experiences for myself and my family as I really should.   This leads to a good amount of guilt and worry for a home educating mother - there is this pervasive feeling that my own tendency toward introversion will necessarily limit my children's ability to make friends.  I think about this all the time.

Plus, I suffer from C.H.A.O.S.  (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  (And that was BEFORE Jonathan's leukemia....) Sometimes my case seems impossible.

But Alice's book drew me in first with her account of how she began reluctantly to consider homeschooling.  Then she recounts her own personal experience with finding kindred-spirit friends in the early days of homeschooling her girls.  (One of her earliest friends had a daughter who developed leukemia  - I spent a  little stretch having a good cry over the photo of that mom with her bald little girl, who looked just like my own little Jonathan looks now - and then seeing the photos and reading later in the book how the little girl and her family made it through.  Somehow it made me feel a little less alone in trying to keep a home education going and find friends in a basically new place with a child undergoing cancer treatment...but THAT TOO is a blog entry for another day...)

After the first few chapters, Alice begins sharing her tidbits - which turn into really meaty suggestions - hundreds of them! - on helping moms like me, reluctant moms, scared moms, introverted moms, moms with children with special needs, find faithful Catholic friends for her home educated children.  Far from being a pie-in-the-sky, here-let's-do-something-major-and-elaborate kind of plan, Alice's plan starts with the simplest advice. 

Pray.  Pray for God to send the gift of kindred spirit families to you - even just one.  Then pray for the needs of the  homeschooling mothers specifically in your circle.  As an introvert, I can do that.  In fact, I started anew on this last night!

Then she launches into a huge host of eminently manageable and practical suggestions for gradually building relationships and encouraging social activities.  The thought that kept occuring to me as I read was...I could do that.  I could do that.  I couldn't do THAT yet, but maybe in a year or so....

Already I have hatched a plan to invite some Catholic homeschoolers over this fall for a social gathering that is, as Alice recommends, time-limited and simple, including just a few all-important elements.  (You'll have to read the book to see what her foolproof formula is for a successful homeschool gathering!)  This is really new for me - usually when I start thinking of organizing something, I NEVER consider my own (messy) home - I start looking for a library meeting room somewhere.  But Alice may have changed all that.

I was going to write my own review of this book, but then I found this review that pretty much says everything I thought I had to say about it - but then when I started writing, I just couldn't stop.  So I guess I've done it - I've written my own review. 

This is a terrific book, especially for insecure and socially-inept Catholic home educating mothers like me.  I thank Alice for writing this book, and I hope others will read it and benefit.