An accessible, enthusiastic manual on how to raise resilient, confident kids.
Harwood, a therapist, presents a practical guide that sets up close relational bonds as the foundation of parenting success.
A child with a secure attachment to at least one caregiver is more likely to be independent, caring, confident, and resilient, asserts the author in the introduction to her new parenting guide, which approaches its topic in a chatty, friendly, and effervescent style. Harwood breaks down basic concepts of attachment and offers empowering tools for caregivers of kids of any age, while acknowledging the challenges of raising neurodivergent children, or kids who have gone through trauma. She also notes the inevitable gaps that a book by a straight white woman will have when approaching the topic of identity oppression. In discussions reinforced by solid data and actionable advice, Harwood proposes a “high structure, high nurture” environment as the best parenting strategy—one in which conflict is an opportunity for discovery, and the emphasis is on cooperation: “When we create a secure connection with our children,” she writes, “it helps them to trust our capacity to help them through the hard stuff.” She illuminates each chapter with relevant stories from her and other parents’ experiences. The book also includes “Nerd Alert” sections, which delve deep into the research and science behind various concepts. These data-rich sections can be easily skipped by those who aren’t interested, but those who are will find engaging explanations of the prefrontal cortex, internal scripts, Edward Tronick’s well-known 1970s “still face” experiment, and more. Harwood’s boisterous prose invigorates lessons in managing conflict, enforcing structure, navigating difficult topics (such as addiction, racism, and abuse), and developing confidence. The type of parenting that this book espouses won’t come naturally to all readers, and it emphasizes that secure attachment isn’t possible without putting in the work to address one’s own attachment traumas, which she calls “ghost hunting”; the more settled and present caregivers are, she points out, the easier it is for kids to find comfort and connection with them.
An accessible, enthusiastic manual on how to raise resilient, confident kids.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781632175465
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sasquatch
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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