An amusing and accurate examination of life with an infant.
A behind-the-scenes look at childbirth and a newborn's first year.
No book and no amount of personal advice can fully prepare a woman for pregnancy, birthing and the first year of a child's life. However, Dais (The NonCyclist's Guide to the Century and Other Road Races, 2009, etc.) provides a comprehensive take on the very real and not-so-pleasant aspects of parenting, from the various and often yucky scenarios that can unfold during the birthing process to the seemingly endless waste an infant can create. "My intention is not to frighten you or to scare you off having children,” she writes, but she does want to prepare women for the completely topsy-turvy world they are about to enter. She uses intimate details of her own child's birth as well as stories from many other mothers with infants and toddlers to bring a much more realistic slant to an event that "changes everything." The humorous revelations offer insight into a natural process that can and often does completely overwhelm the mother. Birthing without drugs, the bodily functions of the mother and infant, and the sheer amount of stuff needed to maintain your new infant are just a few of the subjects she explores. Although humor abounds, topics like postpartum depression, the difficulties in breast-feeding and sleep deprivation are real issues, and Dais' willingness to tackle such issues lets women know that they are not alone in their struggles. "Knowing you are not alone actually helps a little,” she writes. “Trust me, misery does love company, especially during 3 a.m. feeding sessions." Dais' information will help ease new mothers into child-rearing and offer comic relief for those who have ventured onto that path.
An amusing and accurate examination of life with an infant.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58005-484-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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
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