A highly readable treatise on human development—so good it can be recommended to any new or about-to-be ma (and pa). Beginning with conception, controversial science writer Morgan (The Aquatic Ape, 1982, etc.) provides absolutely fascinating material on the days, weeks, and months of development, including fetal rehearsals for breathing that appear to coincide with rapid eye movements. Covering birth, she comments that the tendency toward nighttime arrivals may be a hangover from our pre-hominid past, when the dark was probably safer. Morgan neatly dispatches old myths (smiles are early and real, not symptoms of gas) and calls babies ``he,'' so as not to confuse pronouns with mom. The anatomical compromises between pelvic width, bipedalism, and baby head size, she argues, mean that human newborns are exceptionally helpless and do everything they can to ``control'' their caregivers—making eye contact, crying, imitating, smiling, laughing. The brain almost triples in size the first year, and Morgan reprises the theories of what happened in evolution to favor this development, pooh-poohing the idea that the strains of savannah life put a premium on large brains (other savannah-living primates do just fine with smaller ones). Yes, she still plumps for an aquatic stage of evolution, but here it is watered down to some sort of marshland existence that might have favored certain anatomical and behavioral changes. Chapters on parenting, socialization, and the nursery years remind us how much culture molds society, producing today's state of isolated and ghetto-ized infancy, the need to learn how to care for a child, and the decline of the family. The real tragedy, Morgan avers, is the unwanted child, who runs the risk of continued frustration and abuse and the eventual failure of too little, too late rehabilitation for adolescents. We can learn a lot from and about babies and children, and Morgan is a first-rate guide.
Pub Date: April 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-509895-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1995
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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