Hybrid Event: Four Mothers, Abigail Leonard

Date and Time for this Past Event

• Thursday, May 8, 2025  7pm - 8pm

Location

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Details

East City Bookshop welcomes Abigail Leonard to discuss her book, Four Mothers, in conversation with Ali Rogin.

Note on Format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during audience Q&A.

ABOUT FOUR MOTHERS

Abigail Leonard's page-turning narrative of four real women—Anna from Finland, Tsukasa from Japan, Sarah from the U.S., and Chelsea from Kenya—is a "deeply personal look at women worldwide grappling with the best and worst moments of their first year... eye-opening and cathartic, this is a love letter to parents and a clarion call for better policy.” (Eve Rodsky, New York Times-bestselling author of Fair Play)

Tsukasa in Japan grapples with memories of a difficult childhood as she tries to chart a new, healthier path for her own daughter while balancing onerous cultural expectations. Chelsea in Kenya endures a devastating loss just before she gives birth and finds that without the traditional support of previous generations, motherhood can be grueling – but it can also provide emotional healing. Anna in Finland navigates a complicated relationship with her child’s father, but the country’s robust family policies allow her to still pursue the kind of parenthood that she envisioned. Sarah in the US leaves the religious community that raised her in order to create a less traditional family of her own only to find she’s largely confronting motherhood alone.

Utterly moving and propulsively readable from page one, Leonard interweaves these stories with a critically researched exploration of how parental support programs evolved in each country—and why some provide more help than others. As nations around the world debate programs like paid leave, universal daycare, reproductive healthcare, and family tax incentives, Four Mothers offers a uniquely intimate, moving portrait of what those policies mean for parents on the ground—and considers what modern families really want.

Abigail Leonard is an international reporter and news producer, previously based in Tokyo, where she was a frequent contributor to NPR, Time Magazine, and New York Times video. Before moving to Japan, she wrote and produced news documentaries as a staff producer for PBS, ABC and Al Jazeera America. Stories she reported have earned an Overseas Press Club Award, a National Headliner Award, an Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism and a James Beard Media Award Nomination. She now lives in Washington DC with her husband and three children.

Ali Rogin is a correspondent for the PBS News Hour and PBS News Weekend, reporting on a number of topics including foreign affairs, health care and arts and culture. She received a Peabody Award in 2021 for her work on News Hour’s series on the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect worldwide. Rogin is also the recipient of two Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association and has been a part of several teams nominated for an Emmy, including for her work covering the fall of ISIS in 2020, the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2014, and the 2010 midterm elections.