Reviewed by Roy T. James for Readers' Favorite

The Plate Spinner Chronicles by Barbara Valentin is a humorous look at the travails we invite for ourselves both figuratively and otherwise. These recollections also do not have a beginning or an ending, covering the daily existence of the spinners’ lifetime. Helping her children with school uniforms, books or lunch, finding the day's work schedule for herself, tending to a sick child, extending hospitality to surprise visitors, or profusely apologizing for a prank 911 call, this memoir covers it all. She acknowledges the contributions of others too. To her husband, she says, “You have your own special way of turning the world so it is facing the way that I’m going.”

The Plate Spinner Chronicles is an excellent read. I can’t but agree with Barbara Valentin when she says, “I have mastered the fine art of faux focus, or appearing to be listening when I’m actually doing a dozen other things at the same time. All it takes is a little practice.” This book is a good account of that and much more; making out what two children are saying simultaneously, handling tantrums together with a nutritious meal, or adjusting the trouser length with safety pins (which became a hit leading to unimaginable consequences!). This is a book embedded with humor that catches the reader quite unexpectedly. The author might also make a few grand old spinners of philosophy turn in their graves, when she says “I spin, therefore I am.”