A comprehensive and clearly written plan for mindful, communicative childcare.
Essebag presents a parenting guide based on notions of appreciation and respect.
The author—a teacher, guidance counselor, consultant, and administrator—begins her discussion of effective, compassionate parenting with some simple truths. “When children feel valued, they develop the confidence and resilience to face any of life’s challenges,” she writes. “Parents have a unique responsibility to create a home that supports a healthy and loving family.” In each chapter, Essebag deals with a different aspect of parenting and communication, using example dialogue at every point, either between parents and their children or between parents and Essebag herself: “Vicky: And when you’re kinder to yourself, what is that like? Martha: I’m accepting that I’m only human and that it’s okay to try and fail.” The chapters also feature modulated learning tools such as “Thought Boxes,” in which key concepts are presented in bullet points, as when listing various reasons why a child might become discouraged, for instance: “Disinterest—Children may procrastinate or decline an unwanted task (e.g., homework, a household chore, or family outing).” Chapters also include takeaways and discussion questions with blank spaces provided for readers’ answers. At all points, dialogue is stressed over top-down monologue, with constructive questions such as “What do you want to see happen in place of what is happening now?” Essebag writes in a pleasingly warm and nonconfrontational tone throughout, drawing on her long experience in parental counseling to anticipate typical friction-points encountered by families. She also varies the form and look of her information effectively. That said, the self-evident nature some information is likely to puzzle some readers, including the discussion prompt “How do you know the problem is solved?” However, it’s exactly this kind of from-the-ground-up approach will likely be appreciated by parents who feel overwhelmed.
A comprehensive and clearly written plan for mindful, communicative childcare.Pub Date: June 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781039166974
Page Count: -
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2023
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
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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