Tiger

Playing violin is hard. Making a four-year-old practice the bow stroke is quite impossible. Bringing up a daughter to be violinist, with the house turning topsy-turvy while the wife crumpled invalid after getting multiple sclerosis, almost never works.

You'll know just how hard this is for the Ukrainian-born music teacher Mr. K to do so after reading the book Strings Attached.

As a dad who asks my daughter to practice piano for not more than (and often less) ten minutes each day, I can't imagine the number of hours Mr. K's daughter spent on practicing and symphony rehearsals. I dare not think about the instrument's strain on the chin and neck, the throbbing pain between the shoulder blades, the row upon row of sweep back and forth, bow up and down.

That's why I've never had the courage to read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Some of you might be proud of the stamina that can be found in the blood of a tough mother and her daughter. I am not sure if I am.