book report

While talking with Brooke in Utah, I kept recommending books I’ve recently read. I realized I should post a book review of sorts. Perhaps you'll find a book or two that piques your interest. Most of these books are parenting, marketing (specifically to girls), or child development related, but I've thrown in a few books at the end covering other topics as well. I don't believe any single parenting technique provides a silver bullet. For me, I read the parenting books mainly to learn new approaches that might be helpful in various situations. I read the marketing books because I find advertising schemes aimed directly at young children very troubling, and I find the entire “every little girl needs to be a princess” Disney marketing machine and culture utterly repulsive.

I found many of these books via The Simple Dollar blog. The author is a voracious reader and provides regular book reviews, with which I rarely disagree.

I’ll provide some commentary for a few of these books. For others, I’ll just provide a link.

Top Choices

Mindset by Carol Dweck - Despite what I've just said, if a book alone could make a big difference for a child, or an adult for that matter (this book is not specifically aimed at kids), I believe it would be this one . This book was published in 2006, and I can say with near certainty that if this book and its accompanying research existed during my formative years and I had been able to implement some of its ideas, I would have been a much, much better athlete and student. I'll leave it at that. Fantastic book.

Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman - Turns much of the conventional wisdom of child development on its ear. Each chapter covers a different topic. Well researched, well written. Coincidentally, one chapter addresses Carol Dweck's mindset research.

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease – The benefits and importance of reading aloud to our kids is covered in the first half of the book. I learned that a child’s listening vocabulary develops much more quickly than their speaking vocabulary, so you can start reading more challenging books to your kids than you might otherwise think possible. It prompted me to start reading chapter books to June awhile ago, and she responded positively right from the start. The second half of the book is a huge “Treasury” of recommended read-aloud books. Before reading this book, I would just stare blankly at the overwhelming selection of children’s books at the library and eventually pick something randomly. Armed with the “Treasury,” I save tremendous amounts of time at the library, and we’re almost always pleased with our choices.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein – I’ve ready several good books on this subject. If you read just one, this is it.

Well Worth Reading

It Takes a Parent: How the Culture of Pushover Parenting Is Hurting Our Kids—and What to Do About It by Betsy Hart

I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy! Why You Shouldn’t Say It, Why You Shouldn’t Think It, What You Should Embrace Instead by Aaron Cooper and Eric Keitel

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown

Born To Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet Schor

Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline

Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas – Focuses on younger children (infants and toddlers) than most marketing-to-kids related books. Interesting analysis on what differentiates Gen-X parents from Baby Boomer parents.

Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters by Joann Deak

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Not So Great

Bringing Up Geeks: How to Protect Your Kid’s Childhood in a Grow-Up-Too-Fast World by Marybeth Hicks – I wanted to like it, but its arguments relied too heavily on a single family’s anecdotes.

Great Books On Other Topics

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand – My father-in-law recently recommended and lent me this book, and it easily makes my Top 10 all-time list. The only downside about this book is that it might give you a guilt complex the next time you complain about anything.

Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan – I read it awhile ago but I’ve included it since I enjoyed it so much. Incredibly well written and done so without an apparent agenda. It leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions.

All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi – I also read this years ago, but it’s the simplest, least-focused-on-minutia, and most effective personal money management system I’ve found. It might require some tweaking depending on your situation, but the basic concepts should work for everyone. If you’re not aligned politically with Elizabeth Warren, don’t worry, as I remember it there is no political component to this book.