A well-researched, cursory guide to pregnancy and early parenting.
Debut authors Burke and Lockett offer a guidebook on what new parents may expect from pregnancy, birth and the first year of their baby’s life.
This brief preparatory guide is geared toward readers undergoing the transformative experience of welcoming a new baby into their lives. The authors touch on some aspects of pregnancy, such as how the mother’s health affects the fetus’s, and how three-dimensional ultrasounds can give expectant parents an amazingly clear picture of their baby’s appearance. It also discusses the health and care of a newborn, information about Apgar scores (a quick measure of newborn health), the merits of breastfeeding and the importance of regular postnatal checkups. It contains general guideposts for a baby’s development through its first year and addresses emotional, physical and cognitive growth. There’s a frank discussion about the vast array of physical, emotional and lifestyle changes that parents undergo after the birth of a baby, and of the enormous responsibility that comes with being a parent. The authors offer great expertise, as Burke is a longtime pediatrician and Lockett is a neonatal intensive care nurse and certified lactation counselor. They include charming photographs, mostly of Lockett’s infant son, to support the text, but the images often have the feel of a family photo album. Although the book offers up a hefty dose of positive information about having a baby, it doesn’t provide in-depth information about any single topic. However, it’s a quick read that touches on many common questions and issues, and provides satisfying, abridged information about the astonishing gifts and burdens that come with new babies.
A well-researched, cursory guide to pregnancy and early parenting.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1484808542
Page Count: 82
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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