Review by New York Times Review
THE GIFT OF FAILURE: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed, by Jessica Lahey. (Harper, $15.99.) Overinvolved, hypercompetitive parenting has stunted the competence and resilience of an entire generation of children, Lahey argues. As an educator and a mother, she is well situated to assess the damage: In her view, an intense fear of failure hampers the development of many young people. I MUST BE LIVING TWICE: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2014, by Eileen Myles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $16.99.) Myles's poems in this collection thrum with energy, whether focused on attraction, appetites - for food or otherwise - or bygone selves. In her writing, "the birth of the cool often manifests itself with a kind of willful amateurism," our reviewer, Jeff Gordinier, wrote. THE INVENTION OF NATURE: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World, by Andrea Wulf. (Vintage, $17.) As a pre-eminent scientist who influenced Darwin and many others, Humboldt, a German naturalist, geographer and explorer, proposed that Earth is a single organism. Modern thought is suffused with his ideas, but the man himself has largely receded from view. Wulf revisits his stunning discoveries in her account, one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2015. COUP DE FOUDRE: A Novella and Stories, by Ken Kalfus. (Bloomsbury, $17.) This collection's namesake novella centers on the fictional president of an international financial organization accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. The masterly story, which closely resembles the real-life case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, "enters the mind of a megalomaniac who conflates his own ruin with that of the European economy," Andrew Sean Greer said here. FARTHEST FIELD: An Indian Story of the Second World War, by Raghu Karnad. (Norton, $16.95.) India's contributions to World War II - more than two million men and women served - have been all but scrubbed from prevailing accounts, even on the subcontinent. After unearthing his family's history, Karnad delves into the country's role in the conflict and the peculiarities of fighting in service of the British Empire even as India struggled for independence from it. UNDER THE UDALA TREES, by Chinelo Okparanta. (Mariner, $14.95.) Amid the chaos of the Biafran war, Ijeoma, a child in Nigeria, is sent away to work as a servant in another village. She soon falls in love - with another girl. After the pair are discovered, Ijeoma returns home and learns to reconcile her desires with a society intent on suppressing them. THE TWO-STATE DELUSION: Israel and Palestine - A Tale of Two Narratives, by Padraig O'Malley. (Penguin, $18.) O'Malley, who also researched seemingly intractable disputes in Ireland and South Africa, levels evenhanded criticism at both Palestinians and Israelis, and grimly assesses the feasibility - political and economic - of the two-state proposal, favored by leaders across the globe.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 23, 2016]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"Failure-avoidant" parenting would seem, on the surface, to be synonymous with good parenting. Children stay safe, get into good colleges, and seem happier, at least in the moment. Debut author Lahey proposes, however, that parents will ultimately serve their children better by allowing them to stand on their own abilities and experience the occasional failure. She has a host of suggestions for nurturing more self-directed children: ask them to do their own laundry and pack their own lunches, for instance. The book draws much of its value from Lahey's experience as a middle-school teacher. A chapter on how parents relate to their child's teachers provides rational and useful guidelines for parent-teacher meetings: be early, be friendly, and "support the student-teacher partnership even when it's challenging." Lahey can find value even in the likelihood of children encountering uncongenial teachers, writing that they "will be the people who will teach your child how to deal with the many challenging, unpleasant, contrary, and demanding people they will encounter over the course of their lives." Lahey has many wise and helpful words like these-ones that any parent can and should embrace. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
If your kid forgets his lunch, should you bring it to school for him? What about his homework? Should you intervene if your daughter's friends are leaving her out? These common scenarios usually send today's parents into fix-it mode, but according to educator Lahey, the best of intentions can be a disservice to children, depriving them of valuable lessons and halting their growing confidence. Here the author gives the would-be helicopter parent a look at the consequences of "protecting" children from failure and demonstrates how natural consequences help build resilient and autonomous kids. In short, "what feels good to us isn't always what is good for our children." -VERDICT Lahey's conversational tone, combined with research and narratives from both children and parents, delivers in-depth insight into the value of mistakes. With chapters on specific age groups (middle schoolers and high schoolers) and hot-button issues, such as household chores, homework, and friendships, any parent who needs assistance reining in the supermom tendencies will find sound advice here. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Reflections on the benefits of giving children the chance to experience failureand how to go about doing it. A teacher and writer on education and parenting for the New York Times and the Atlantic, Lahey provides an overview of parenting values through the decades in order to ensure that we don't return to outdated values, as well as to examine the weaknesses of the current approach. This would, in theory, provide useful information toward a new paradigm, rather than simply lurching back toward the end of the spectrum that involves such actions as smacking students' hands with rulers when they are disrespectful. While certainly not advocating that approach, Lahey is also unwilling to turn a blind eye to the problems inherent in modern parenting, which she characterizes as essentially overridden by parents' concerns about securing the best possible everything for their children: experiences free of disappointment, a prize for every participant, making sure self-esteem, above all else, is maintained. The result, the author argues compellingly, is hobbling children, leaving them unable to develop actual self-understanding and competency in how to integrate the idea of failure into their lives. Lahey brings her own parenting to the table, dissecting her difficulties in practicing what she preaches. For example, when her son leaves for school without the homework he'd worked so hard on, and she sees it, should she bring it to him and save him from missing recess? The author admits her struggles with holding the line and letting natural consequences take their course. In the majority of the book, Lahey focuses on strategies for navigating the parent/child/school triangle to avoid getting entangled in controlling the experience, but she also considers home chores, peer relationships, and a variety of other topics. An important, thoughtfully balanced book aimed at shifting thinking and providing concrete steps toward encouraging positiveand realisticself-image development. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
