A warm and heartfelt account of establishing the treasured childcare institution HelloBaby.
Frisch and Simonelli detail the history of an innovative childcare initiative.
In this volume, Simonelli, a journalist, and child welfare activist Frisch tell the story of how she founded HelloBaby, a free-play space for babies, toddlers and their parents and caregivers, based in the rough environs of Chicago’s South Side. At HelloBaby, children are given plenty of open-ended play and activity time, and their caregivers, in addition to being able to relax for a bit, are given first-hand demonstrations of how their children blossom when taken out of their usual “play desert” (“a community where accessible play spaces are hard to find”) and allowed to flourish. To spread the word about her prospective project and perhaps secure some official funding or sanction, Frisch originally tried to interest then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and gubernatorial candidate J. B. Pritzker, but her overtures failed to elicit any response. So, Frisch pivoted to a “bottom-up” approach, contacting local community groups and churches, and, in 2017, HelloBaby opened its doors. Frisch was responding to the self-evident fact that, “unfortunately, the social systems we’ve built around families don’t always support the natural processes designed to help babies grow up strong, happy, and loved.” She notes many reasons for this—“entrenched racism, de facto segregation, the deterioration of the nuclear family, and generational histories of trauma”—and provides readers with a series of case studies of the parents and children who’ve been helped by HelloBaby since it began.
Those case studies make up a significant portion of the book and give it a very human face. They’re well chosen by Frisch and well shaped by Simonelli into personalized parables that effectively illustrate the many kinds of help young children and their adult caretakers often need—and the kinds of help HelloBaby tries to provide. There are profiles of babies like Tucker, born in rural Illinois to heroin-addicted parents, who decided, when Tucker was an infant, that they couldn’t care for him anymore, and Louise, who was born in a run-down inner-city hospital to a mother facing criminal charges and suffering from mental health issues. Alongside these personal stories, the authors engagingly tell the story of creating HelloBaby, covering everything from personnel and philosophy to the intricacies of how the actual space would be designed. “The whole space was created with an understanding of how it would be experienced from a baby’s perspective,” they write. “Over and over again, the question was asked: What would be at eye-level for an infant or toddler?” Positive moments that can uplift an entire day were “gently kneaded into the design.” Throughout, Frisch urges her readers to adopt the HelloBaby ideology: “My call to you is to pick the thing you know how to do, that you love to do, and share it,” she writes. “Even a little good can ripple out in ways you will likely never see.” A warm and heartfelt account of establishing the treasured childcare institution HelloBaby.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781953943255
Page Count: -
Publisher: Rivertowns Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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