Shannon Watts

Part personal account, part “How To” manual and part PR recruitment tool for her organization, Shannon Watts’ Fight Like a Mother is a call to action aimed specifically at mothers who are concerned about the current state of gun control in the U.S. Spurred to action after the horrific events at Sandy Hook, Watts founded Moms Demand Action, a national movement that grew out of her Facebook page. This book details the evolution of the grassroots group and recounts the successes and “losing forward” events that have resulted from its efforts. Watts emphasizes how the skill sets mothers often already possess can be utilized for activism and encourages those who may be reluctant to participate. She discusses how to recruit and motivate volunteers, build expertise through networks and data collection, use social media for low-cost message distribution, and combat challenges to delegation and life/work balance. Throughout, Watts uses her own experiences to highlight potential pitfalls and recommend methods for maintaining momentum. She provides advice for finding solutions to common internal and external roadblocks that can occur when addressing a complex and controversial issue. Like any book based on constantly-evolving current events, Fight Like a Mother will inevitably contain some expiring data in the time it takes to be published. Still, there is plenty of extremely useful and inspiring information that Watts provides for anyone who desires to contribute to the gun reform debate or even build a movement of their own.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Harper Collins for an ARC of this book in exchange for an objective review.… (mais)