Book Summary and Reviews of Cutting Teeth by Chandler Baker

Book Summary

New York Times bestselling author Chandler Baker's Cutting Teeth is a witty, thrilling story of parental love that asks: is there anything a mother won't do for her children?

Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood—their careers, their sex lives, their bodies. But their children disrupt their plans when an unsettling medical condition begins to go around the Little Academy preschool: the kids are craving blood.

Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable four-year-olds.

Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects ... and so are their mothers.

As the police begin to look more closely, the children's ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious. Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, Cutting Teeth explores the standards society holds mothers to—along with the ones to which we hold ourselves—and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Rhea, Darby, and Mary Beth each have different approaches to parenting. How would you characterize their individual philosophies and with which of these philosophies do you most identify?
2. At the start of the novel, Miss Ollie confronts Rhea about the contents of Bodhi's lunch box. She later tells Rhea that she cares about the kids in her class as if they were her own children. Does Miss Ollie overstep her boundaries with Rhea? When is it appropriate to express an opinion about someone else's parenting choices?
3. Renfield's syndrome is a fictional medical condition that causes those afflicted to crave blood. If such an outbreak of Renfield's occurred in a real school, how do you think that community's reaction would compare ...