A boffo cartoon history of the deliberate manipulation of children's minds.
An entertaining and fact-filled explanation of how toy manufacturers have used psychology and state-of-the-art advertising techniques in children's programming in order to maximize their profits.
In his latest, Brown, author of Tetris, André the Giant, and other well-received works of graphic nonfiction, methodically builds his case that the same strategies developed for wartime propaganda and corporate takeover purposes are deployed in stealth advertising aimed at children. With simple but clever and appealing drawings, he illustrates how Disney and other corporate behemoths have become adept at tying emotional experiences and nostalgia to their media properties. We see just how closely Americans emulate what they see on TV, the sly "salesman in every living room." Toymakers often exploit the fact that children cannot differentiate TV programs from their commercials, and they sponsor Saturday morning cartoons indistinguishable from their playtime products. Brown capably draws the history of breakthrough toys created by the industry's major players: Hasbro, whose G.I. Joe, "basically a boy's Barbie," pioneered the idea of action figures; Marvel, whose comic books were fundamentally commercials to sell their toys; and Mattel, whose bodybuilding He-Man "made Star Wars and G.I Joe figures look like wimpy pencil-neck geeks." The author continues his exploration of "advertising content disguised as programming" through the eras of syndicated animation, cable TV, video games, and numerous new entries in the Star Wars franchise. Throughout the book, Brown emphasizes that children's imaginative play is crucially important in order to learn cooperation, problem-solving, and the nuances of language. He shows how children's media have colonized this crucial area of cognitive development through his depictions of cartoon icons such as Mickey Mouse, idealized masculine role models such as He-Man, and other potent examples of what the New York Times called a "fusion of commerce and childhood imagination." Both Brown's well-studied subject and his playful graphic art are truly "Toyetic!"
A boffo cartoon history of the deliberate manipulation of children's minds.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781250261403
Page Count: 272
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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