While Kephart does not claim to have cured her son’s PPD, parents who have received a similar diagnosis will find her...
A mother’s bittersweet account of raising a son to whom experts had given the ungainly label “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified,” a disorder akin to autism.
When Kephart, a freelance writer, gave birth to her son, Jeremy, in 1989, he seemed like a perfectly normal baby. By the time he was a toddler, however, it was clear he had problems. Jeremy was terrified of strangers, beset with obsessions, had poor motor skills, and did not use words normally. The diagnosis of PDD that Kephart was given after extensive testing did not come with a set of helpful instructions for dealing with it. Her efforts to find the right therapists and programs for Jeremy are a story of determination, frustration, ingenuity, partial successes, tireless efforts, and most of all, a mother’s love. Working with no guidelines, no knowledge of what milestones to look for, Kephart learned to trust her own instincts. A work-at-home mother, she devoted hours every day to working with her son, involving him in activities other than pacing or running in circles or playing with the toy cars that always remained his strongest obsession. She endlessly spoke her own thoughts aloud to Jeremy to keep him connected to the world of words, and she continually read and told him stories to help him develop an empathy for others, a quality Jeremy lacked. She searched for and found a therapist to help him overcome echolalia (repeating the words spoken by others), children to play with him, and schools and camps with teachers and counselors willing to accept and work with a child with his differences. By the end of Kephart’s story, Jeremy was adjusting well to school, expressing himself in words, and inviting friends home to play.
While Kephart does not claim to have cured her son’s PPD, parents who have received a similar diagnosis will find her revealing story immensely encouraging.Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-393-02742-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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