An entertaining, informative, and enlightening narrative on the German methods of parenting that will have many in the U.S....
How an American woman altered her parenting methods to mimic her new German neighbors.
When Zaske (The First, 2012) moved with her husband and young daughter to Berlin, she discovered that her German neighbors handled parenting quite differently than what she was used to in the U.S. In this well-written mix of personal reflections and sociological data, the author explains why she decided to change how she raised her daughter and newborn son in order to fit in with German attitudes toward parenting. Although skeptical at first, she soon discovered that many of her fears and concerns regarding playground safety, a parent’s need to be ever watchful, and engaging in endless play rather than academics were unwarranted. Her children thrived under the less-controlling lifestyle and became far more secure and self-reliant, as do most German children. Germans allow even the very young to use knives and matches under supervision and older children to walk to and from school or to the playground unaccompanied by an adult. Like many Europeans, they emphasize the importance of being outside regardless of the weather, with infants left well bundled in strollers while parents shop or eat lunch indoors; visits to numerous parks and green spaces are also common. Nudity is readily accepted, and human sexuality is taught early in the schools, providing children with a solid knowledge base from which to make informed decisions before they reach puberty. Zaske also examines the difference between the German educational system’s intentional teaching and awareness of the Holocaust and the U.S. and its “cursory treatment of our country’s historical crimes.” Even though the author’s children didn’t reach their teens while they were in Berlin, she includes important details about the freedoms German teens enjoy, including specially designed sites where they can congregate with friends.
An entertaining, informative, and enlightening narrative on the German methods of parenting that will have many in the U.S. reconsidering how they’re raising their children.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-16017-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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