ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602050045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Long before she became first lady, long before she was dubbed ``the other Clinton,'' the force behind the power, Hillary Rodham Clinton was known as a passionate advocate for children.
So it seems only natural for her to have penned ``It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us'' (Simon & Schuster, $20), a book that chronicles her quest, both personal and public, to find ways our society can best nurture its youngest members.
If you're expecting new ideas or fresh solutions, you won't find them in this 318-page book. Much of what she writes has been expressed before by others - as well as by Clinton herself - and sometimes in more interesting and forceful ways.
Yet, what she says in the book - the news of which largely has been drowned out by questions being raised about her role in Whitewater and in the firings at the White House travel office - is far from dry. Its saving grace is the personal stories threaded throughout the chapters. These allow us to see Hillary Rodham Clinton as mother, sister, daughter and wife, far removed from Washington politics. It is these vignettes of the woman behind that public persona that add flavor to the matter-of-fact narrative about topics such as child care and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The more interesting personal stories in the book include these:
nAt church in Little Rock one Sunday, daughter Chelsea, then 4, told the congregation she wanted to give her mom life insurance as her Mother's Day gift. It was perfectly logical, in her eyes: The little girl thought it meant that her mother could live forever.
nDue in court one morning when Chelsea was running a fever and her husband was out of town, Hillary Clinton frantically searched for sick-child care, without success, before finding a friend who could help. Chelsea, the book notes, ended up faring much better that day than her mother, who had a headache and stomachache from worry.
nGrowing up in the ``clean plate'' era, Clinton says she was expected to eat a ``catastrophe of calories'' but also remembered working off that catastrophe by walking and biking everywhere around town and playing hours of sports. ``My brother Hugh,'' she writes, ``became a champion cheek stuffer. (My brother) Tony offered to mail his food to any country my father named.''
Clinton manages to be both candid and political in this book - candid about her feelings on public life, political by pointing out policies she says her husband masterminded as president and as Arkansas governor.
The topics she covers run the gamut from parent education to television violence, from spirituality to health care. The book is heavy on examples. To demonstrate, for instance, that the problems American parents face have been dealt with successfully elsewhere, she cites France's support of universal child care.
She comes across as being surprisingly traditional about certain aspects of family life, though she says she strongly believes we shouldn't - and can't - turn the clock back to the good old days. She advocates, for example, that states institute a mandatory ``cooling off'' period before the courts would be allowed to grant a divorce, with education and counseling for parents during that time.
That jibes with her view that every society requires a critical mass of families that fit the ``traditional'' mold because these best serve the needs of children - and she worries that we are at risk of losing that crucial mass in America today.
``My strong feelings about divorce and its effect on children,'' she writes, ``have caused me to bite my tongue more than a few times during my own marriage and to think instead about what I could do to be a better wife and partner. My husband has done the same.''
Her passion for the welfare of the country's children imbues every chapter of the book. Her call to action to offset the detrimental aspects of economic and marital instability is heartfelt.
``At a time when the well-being of children is under unprecedented threat,'' she concludes, ``the balance of power is weighted heavily against them.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. "It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teachby CNBUs" chronicles Hillary Clinton's quest to find ways our society can
best nurture its youngest members.