A parenting manual that’s soft on research but warm, wise, and often original.
A debut guide to becoming a fun, supportive parent.
Many people believe they’ll be good parents before they actually have a child. Then they fall apart at the piercing screams of a toddler’s tantrum, or wonder why a child refuses to go to sleep. Authors Wipfler and Schore wrote this book for these moments. They assure parents that their children are normal, despite behavior that seems unmoored. More importantly, they reassure parents that they are normal, too—that feelings of anger and resentment are natural companions to joy and wonderment. Wipfler and Schore call their method “Hand in Hand Parenting,” because they posit that families function best when parents and children feel close and connected. They recommend five tools for strengthening those connections: “Regular Special Time,” with parents giving full attention to an activity that the child chooses; “Staylistening,” or remaining close but largely quiet as a child works through emotional upsets; “Setting Limits,” so that children do not hurt themselves or others; “Playlistening,” or play that elicits stress-relieving laughter; and “the Listening Partnership,” in which parents share feelings and experiences with other understanding adults. Together, the authors say, these tools head off problems and let children do necessary emotional work. The book’s structure allows busy parents to quickly find solutions to specific problems and shares expertise in a fun, flowing style: “We win our children’s hearts (and respect) when we get down on our knees and wrestle with them,” the authors note. “We can bond with one another over watermelon-seed-spitting contests and squirt-gun battles.” Overall, the book offers plenty of wisdom. However, the authors should have cited specific, scientific research to back up some claims. They tell many stories of children who seem to be processing the negative emotions of their own difficult births, for example, but they provide no evidence that proves that trauma is actually stored that way. Some of their solutions, such as sharing deep emotions, may not be comfortable for everyone. That said, the authors will likely help parents find imaginative, calm ways to help their children become adults.
A parenting manual that’s soft on research but warm, wise, and often original.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9974593-0-2
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Hand in Hand Parenting
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
