A Good Childhood


Book Description

Every day the newspapers lament the problems facing our children - broken homes, pressures to eat and drink, the stress of exams. The same issues are discussed in every pub and at every dinner party. But is life really more difficult for children than it was, and if so why? And how can we make it better? This book, which is a result of a two year investigation by the Children's Society and draws upon the work of the UK's leading experts in many fields, explores the main stresses and influences to which every child is exposed - family, friends, youth culture, values, and schooling, and will make recommendations as to how we can improve the upbringing of our children. It tackles issues which affect every child, whatever their background, and questions and provides solutions to the belief that life has become so extraordinarily difficult for children in general. The experts make 30 specific recommendations, written not from the point of view of academics, but for the general reader - above all for parents and teachers. We expect publication to be a major event and the centre of widespread media attention.




The Perfect Childhood


Book Description




Bad Childhood---Good Life


Book Description

In this important book, Dr. Laura Schlessinger shows men and women that they can have a Good Life no matter how Bad their Childhood. For each of us, there is a connection between our early family dynamics and experiences and our current attitudes and decisions. Many of the people Dr. Laura has helped did not realize how their histories impacted their adult lives, or how their choices in people, repetitive situations, and decisions -- even their emotional reactions -- were connected to those early negative experiences, playing a major role in their current unhappiness. For these people and millions like them, too much time is dedicated to repeating the ugly dynamics of childhood in a vain attempt to repair or cope with deep hurt and longings. Too often they use their emotional pain to control others or excuse their own inappropriate and destructive behaviors. Some turn to therapy, only to find themselves trapped in their self-pitying victim mode, robbed of optimism, confidence, and growth. Dr. Laura will help you realize that no matter what circumstances you came from or currently live in, you are ultimately responsible for how you react to them. The acceptance of this basic truth is the source of your power to secure the Good Life you long for. In her signature straightforward style, with real-life examples, Dr. Laura shows you what you will gain by not being satisfied with an identity as a victim, or even as a survivor -- but striving to be a victor! In Bad Childhood -- Good Life, Dr. Laura will guide you to accept the truth of the assaults on your psyche and soul, understand your unique coping style and how it impacts your daily thoughts and actions, and help you embrace a life of more peace and happiness. Bad Childhood -- Good Life comes from a compassionate and personal place. Dr. Laura also reveals some of her own experiences with a difficult childhood and what efforts it took to attain a Good Life. She writes, "My resilience has paid off, and I'm doing the best I can with what I've got." Now you can, too.




God's Perfect Child


Book Description

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Christian Scientist Caroline Fraser comes the first unvarnished account of one of America's most controversial and little-understood religious movements. Millions of Americans – from Lady Astor to Ginger Rogers to Watergate conspirator H. R. Haldeman – have been touched by the Church of Christ, Scientist. Founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, Christian Science was based on a belief that intense contemplation of the perfection of God can heal all ills – an extreme expression of the American faith in self-reliance. In this unflinching investigation, Caroline Fraser, herself raised in a Scientist household, shows how the Church transformed itself from a small, eccentric sect into a politically powerful and socially respectable religion, and explores the human cost of Christian Science's remarkable rise. Fraser examines the strange life and psychology of Mary Baker Eddy, who lived in dread of a kind of witchcraft she called Malicious Animal Magnetism. She takes us into the closed world of Eddy's followers, who refuse to acknowledge the existence of illness and death and reject modern medicine, even at the cost of their children's lives. She reveals just how Christian Science managed to gain extraordinary legal and Congressional sanction for its dubious practices and tracks its enormous influence on new-age beliefs and other modern healing cults. A passionate exposé of zealotry, God's Perfect Child tells one of the most dramatic and little-known stories in American religious history.




Feeling Like a Kid


Book Description

A lively and illustrated inquiry of how children's literature reflects the curious mind of a child—now available in paperback. Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine In this engaging book, Jerry Griswold examines the unique qualities of childhood experience and their reappearance as frequent themes in children's literature. Surveying dozens of classic and popular works for the young—from Heidi and The Wizard of Oz to Beatrix Potter and Harry Potter—Griswold demonstrates how great children's writers succeed because of their uncanny ability to remember what it feels like to be a kid: playing under tables, shivering in bed on a scary night, arranging miniature worlds with toys, zooming around as caped superheroes, and listening to dolls talk. Feeling Like a Kid boldly and honestly identifies the ways in which the young think and see the world in a manner different from that of adults. Written by a leading scholar, prize-winning author, and frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, this extensively illustrated book will fascinate general readers as well as all those who study childhood and children's literature.







"It's Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood"


Book Description

Claudia Black, a founder of the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) movement, has written an inspiring collection of healing messages that offer comfort and encouragement, serenity and hope, to anyone surviving a painful childhood. Touching on such issues as trust, denial, self-acceptance, forgiveness, and faith, each message is illuminated by a vibrant, evocative painting by renowned artist Laurie Zagon, an expert in color therapy.




Hiawatha


Book Description

Weaving together the beautiful oral traditions of the American Indian into a grand epic poem, Longfellow's renowned classic is given a stunning visual interpretation by an award-winning artist. A "Booklist" Editor's Choice Book. Full color.




The Design of Childhood


Book Description

From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.




Unexhausted Time


Book Description

Unexhausted Time inhabits a world of dream and dawn, in which thoughts touch us 'like soft rain', and all the elements are brought closer in. Feelings, messages, symbols, visions . . . Emily Berry's latest collection takes shape in the half-light between the real and the imagined, where everything is lost and yet 'nothing goes away'. Here life's innumerable impressions, moods, seasons and déjà vus collect and disarrange themselves, while a glowing, companionable 'I' travels the mind's landscapes in hope of refuge and transformation amid these displaced moments in time. Whether one reads Unexhausted Time as a long poem to step into or a series of titled and untitled fragments to pick up and cherish, the work is healing and inspiring, always asking how we might harness the power of naming without losing life's 'magic unknownness'. By offering these intangible encounters, Emily Berry more truly presents 'what being alive is'. 'Emily Berry has a refreshingly free, not to say incendiary, approach to poetry.' Observer