One morning, Kim Brooks made a split-second decision to leave her four-year old son in the car while she ran into a store. What happened would consume the next several years of her life and spur her to investigate the broader role America's culture of fear plays in parenthood. In Small Animals , Brooks asks, of all the emotions inherent in parenting, is there any more universal or profound than fear? Why have our notions of what it means to be a good...

"Body Phobia is an examination of the American fear of the body, how it permeates all parts of culture, alienates us from one another, marginalizes some, and harms us all. Dianna E. Anderson exposes our fear-based politics and shows us a way to approach bodies that is neither positive nor negative but neutral. Our bodies are. And that's enough"--