Sensible techniques to combat bedwetting, to be used in conjunction with a trip to the pediatrician.
A friendly guide to helping kids achieve dry nights and happier mornings.
With more than 40 years’ experience as a physician, Robson (Stop Washing the Sheets, 2011) has worked with many children and parents to help them overcome the frustration of waking up with drenched sheets. This how-to can be read in an afternoon, and is divided into 10 succinct chapters, beginning with an explanation of why children wet the bed. The average age when parents seek his advice, writes Robson, is when a child is about 7 or 8, an age when bladder capacity is often lower than the norm. He says that this can often be improved with time and behavioral changes. Parents may be surprised to read, for example, that they should encourage kids to drink fluids in the evening; according to the author, good hydration promotes good bowel health, which is the first step toward improving bladder capacity and preventing bedwetting. A morning “poop time” is crucial, writes Robson: “You need to finesse the cooperation of your child to sit on the toilet for ten minutes (use a timer) after breakfast.” He also recommends “alarm therapy” for retraining the brain to recognize the signal to get up and urinate. Although some readers may balk at the idea of clipping an alarm to their child’s underwear at night, the author’s gentle tone makes the therapy seem less clinical; for instance, he playfully encourages parents to help kids learn to “Beat the Buzzer.” In lieu of excessive medical jargon, Robson’s down-to-earth language (including words such as “pee” and “poop”) makes for breezy reading. Parents will also relate to his analogies; for example, he likens the feeling of a child’s full bowel and cramped bladder to a mother’s constant urge to urinate during pregnancy. This slim edition is also an insightful eye-opener, as it refutes several myths, including the idea that bedwetting is a psychological problem. The book concludes with a brief appendix featuring a few easy-to-interpret tables, including one detailing the fiber content of common foods.
Sensible techniques to combat bedwetting, to be used in conjunction with a trip to the pediatrician.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-8245-8
Page Count: 120
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.
Largely autobiographical meditations and wanderings through landscapes external and internal.
National Book Critics Circle Award–winner Solnit (River of Shadows: Edward Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, 2003, etc.) roams through a large territory here. The book cries out for an explanatory subtitle: “field guide” shouldn’t be taken as a literal description of these eclectic memories, keen observations and provocative musings. Four of Solnit’s essays have the same title, “The Blue of Distance,” but the first segues from the blue in Renaissance paintings to a turquoise blouse the author wore as a child, then to the blue of distance seen on a walk across the drought-shrunken Great Salt Lake. The second presents Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer who wandered for years in the Americas, and then several white children taken captive by Indians; their stories demonstrate that a person can cease to be lost not only by returning, but also by turning into someone else. The third blue essay explores the world of country and western music, full of tales of loss and longing. The fourth introduces the eccentric artist Yves Klein, who patented the formula for his special electric blue paint and claimed to be launching a new Blue Age. How does it all fit in? Don’t ask, just enjoy, for Solnit is a captivating writer. Woven in and out of these four pieces and the five others that alternate with them are Solnit’s immigrant ancestors, lost friends, former lovers, favorite old movies, her own dreams, the house she grew up in, harsh deserts, animals on the edge of extinction and abandoned buildings. All become material for the author’s explorations of loss, losing and being lost.
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.Pub Date: July 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03421-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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