A charming, engaging, and uplifting motivational book.
The inspirational behind-the-scenes story of a social service entrepreneur.
In many ways, Piturro’s debut memoir is emblematic of the American dream. Her father was an Italian immigrant, and her mother was the daughter of an Italian immigrant, and as an adult, the author worked part-time, attended college, and embarked on a successful career as a television marketing executive. Then one day, Piturro wondered if she was truly living the life she wanted, and it seemed to her that she had “missed something.” Although she had a warm relationship with her siblings’ kids, she had none of her own, and this led to “a growing need to connect with more children.” She began to read books to homeless kids at a local shelter, and this led her to her true calling. In this book, she traces the origins of the Pajama Program, a nonprofit organization she created two decades ago that provides books and pajamas to needy children through 63 volunteer-run chapters in the United States. It also provides similar services to youngsters in more than 25 other countries. Piturro straightforwardly reveals the trials and tribulations she faced while starting the nonprofit—including leaving her old career, investing thousands of dollars of her own money, and dealing with the resulting stress on her marriage. These personal sections are among the book’s strongest, as Piturro effectively shows how she rose above challenges and overcame obstacles with the help of others. In fact, she says that one of the biggest lessons she learned was that “the power of one doesn’t hold much weight. That’s because it’s really the power of one-ANOTHER that gets the job done.”
Piturro’s story unfolds chronologically, with wise observations about leadership interspersed throughout—axioms she calls “The Heart of the Matter.” These tips are always pithy and salient; for example, here’s how she explains her advice to “Put your money where your heart-voice is”: “When you spend money, time, energy, and resources on something that brings you joy, the price will feel small compared to what you get in return.” It’s easy to get caught up in the author’s emotions as she tells of the joy she’s brought to children by simply presenting them with new pajamas. Pajamas, in fact, are a recurring metaphor; at one point, for instance, she urges the reader to “Find your pajamas!” and suggests that “Your purpose can show up anywhere, anytime, at any age. It can change your career, your work relationships, your personal life, or all of it!” There are plenty of stirring anecdotes, and one particularly notable recollection describes Piturro’s 2007 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which the celebrity host unveiled a wonderful surprise. Some readers may find Piturro’s prose style a bit too effusive at times, but her passion is undeniable, and she relates her life lessons with memorable imagery, as when she notes how the name “Pajama Program” came to her “like an invisible raindrop ‘plopped’ onto the top of my head.”
A charming, engaging, and uplifting motivational book.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63299-290-1
Page Count: 202
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
