Konstantin Entalecev Entalecev itibaren De Mer, Haiti itibaren De Mer, Haiti

Much has changed since the author wrote this book. It still has some really interesting insights but maybe a little optimistic.

The "fake travel guide" is a great concept, and parts of this book are *hilarious* -- but unfortunately it gets old pretty quick. I'd still like to read some of the others in the series, though.

This book struck me as similar to Malcolm Gladwell's books, in that the authors' main purpose is to debunk "conventional wisdom". In this case, it's conventional wisdom about child raising. My big problem with the book is that I didn't think the wisdom they debunked was particularly valid. For example, the chapter on children lying only debunks conventional wisdom if you think children don't lie. Who thinks that? I believe childhood is the time we lie like crazy to see what it feels like, to help us form our moral compasses. In the chapter on only children, they debunk the "conventional wisdom" that only children are less socially adept, because they don't have siblings to practice on. I never heard of that. I thought (and experienced) that only children were much *more* socially adept, because they hang around adults all the time. The chapter on gifted children was maddening. First, the authors say that our methods of choosing gifted children must be wrong because three years later, many of the previously gifted children are no longer gifted. This is a travesty they say because gifted children are bestowed with incredible opportunties and benefits that are denied to the non-gifted. Therefore, it is unbelievably important to choose the right children as gifted. But if the benefits of being gifted were so great, why do they allow 2/3's of the previously gifted to become un-gifted? The conventional wisdom supposedly being smashed in this chapter is that children all develop at the same, constant rate. Who believes that? Another problem I have with the book is they cite many studies where the researchers did not come up with the results they wanted, so they re-designed their studies. This, to me, is just bad science. If the researchers are heavily invested in the results they want, I'm very suspicious of their studies. If you find this book intriguing, my advice is to read the epilog. All the faults I find with the book are contained there, and it won't ruin the book to read it first. Here the authors soundly debunk what they call "The Good/Bad dichotomy", the feeling that all traits in people are either good or bad. Their amazing revelation is that actually some traits can be used for good or bad. If that's surprising to you, you might like this book.

if you like auto/biographies and can take all the grammatical/spelling errors. the author was incarcerated from ages 17 through 21 and currently works as a human rights activist for elimination of sexual abuse in all stages of incarceration.