Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. There's a lot of ground covered in today's

interview. It's between NPR Scott Simon and the journalist Doreen Cunningham, who traced the migration

pattern of Wales from Mexico all the way to the northern point of Alaska, and she brought her two-year-old

kid along, too. She wrote about the experience in a memoir called Soundings, and she brought her two-year-old kid along, too.

She wrote about the experience in a memoir called Soundings, and she talked to Scott about the kind of bind single parents are often placed into.

You know, they're not really given that much support to care for their children, but

when they don't meet whatever arbitrary standard society sets for a good home, they get shamed and tisk-tisked about it.

So she decided to just dip and take her son on this kind of epic journey.

And it's actually pretty funny when she talks about the only part of it he remembered.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant

events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or

wherever you get your podcasts. Durin Cunningham has written a book that is a memoir,

meditation, and an adventure, both for whales who migrate from Baja, California to the Arctic,

and those other mammals we call human beings.

Soundings tells the story, and it's her story, of a single mother who takes Max, her two-year-old

son, an attractive follow that migration of gray whales and the pods by which we all try to

navigate what can be a forbidding world.

Doreen Cunningham joins us now.

Thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

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