Review by New York Times Review
#+ |9781101947296 ~ at age 3, before she could write by hand, Barbara Newhall Follett was banging out words on her parents' Corona. Her first book, a lyrical romp about a child runaway, came out in 1927 when she was 12. The Saturday Review of Literature called it "almost unbearably beautiful," and this newspaper deemed it "wonderful." A second book, based on her adventures at sea, earned more accolades just a little over a year later. But at age 15, Follett was arrested in San Francisco after fleeing the suffocating plans of her mother. "I felt I had to have my freedom," she told a reporter. A decade later, Follett walked out of the apartment she was sharing with her husband in Brookline, Mass., evidently seeking freedom once more, this time from her marriage. She was never heard from again. Child prodigies are exotic creatures, each unique and inexplicable. But they have a couple of things in common, as Ann Hulbert's meticulous new book, "Off the Charts," makes clear: First, most Wunderkinds eventually experience some kind of schism with a devoted and sometimes domineering parent. "After all, no matter how richly collaborative a bond children forge with grown-up guides, some version of divorce is inevitable," Hulbert writes. "It's what modern experts would call developmentally appropriate." Second, most prodigies grow up to be thoroughly unremarkable on paper. They do not, by and large, sustain their genius into adulthood. What happens to alter the trajectory of shooting stars like Follett? In "Off the Charts," Hulbert attempts to capture the complicated lives of child prodigies without descending into voyeurism or caricature. She has tried to "listen hard for the prodigies' side of the story," to her great credit. This is an arduous task, and it sometimes shows in the writing, which can be stilted in its reliance on quotes and documentation. But Hulbert's diligence results in a surprising payoff: The best advice for managing a child prodigy may be a wise strategy for parenting any child, including the many, many nonbrilliant ones. Hulbert, The Atlantic's literary editor, wrote her last book, "Raising America," about the tortured history of parenting advice. So she is appropriately wary of preachy morality tales. "My goal isn't to pile on the stark cautionary fare. Nor am I aiming to crack some 'talent code,"' she writes in the prologue for "Off the Charts," to our great relief. Instead, she tries to place each of the boys and girls featured in the book in a specific time and place; their celebrity reveals much about their particular moment in American history. For example, Bobby Fischer's chess prowess might not have been impressive enough for adults to overlook his breathtaking egotism - but for the launching of Sputnik and America's anxiety about creeping Soviet domination in education and science. One era's prodigy is another's anonymous misfit. The book begins with the story of two gifted boys who attended Harvard at the same time, in the early 1900s. Norbert Wiener, a budding philosopher and mathematician, was 14, and William Sidis, a star in linguistics and mathematics, was only 11. They were not friends, which was a shame. Both suffered under the weight of their elders' intellectual expectations, combined with the impossibility of fitting in as boys among men. They were told they were superior, but then punished if they acted like it. Their identities depended on superhuman smarts, which made any academic failure feel like a knife to the heart. Wiener would struggle with depression for the rest of his life, but he did manage to eventually find professional fulfillment at M.I.T., where he helped invent the field of cybernetics. Sidis was not so successful; after fleeing a criminal charge related to a political protest, he did low-level accounting work in New York. He continued to alienate others with his stubborn arrogance before dying at 46 of a cerebral hemorrhage. What would have helped these boys and the other struggling prodigies in this book? Maybe nothing. But after poring over their words and stories, Hulbert has concluded that they might all offer parents similar advice: Accept who they are. That doesn't mean protecting them from failure or stress; quite the opposite. "What they want, and need, is the chance to obsess on their own idiosyncratic terms - to sweat and swerve, lose their balance, get their bearings, battle loneliness, discover resilience," Hulbert writes. Interestingly, this is the same advice contemporary psychologists tend to give to all parents, not just the parents of prodigies. Parents must hold children accountable and help them thrive, which is easier said than done; but if they try to re-engineer the fundamentals of their offspring, they will fail spectacularly, sooner or later. And this lesson is particularly obvious in the extremes. "Extraordinary achievement, though adults have rarely cared to admit it, takes a toll," Hulbert writes. "It demands an intensity that rarely makes kids conventionally popular or socially comfortable. But if they get to claim that struggle for mastery as theirs, in all its unwieldiness, they just might sustain the energy and curiosity that ideally fuels such a quest." THE SPECIAL CHALLENGE for prodigies IS that they are exceptional in more ways than one. "Genius is an abnormality, and abnormalities do not come one at a time," explains Veda Kaplinsky, a longtime teacher of gifted students, in Andrew Solomon's "Far From the Tree," a book that is cited by Hulbert. "Many gifted kids have A.D.D. or O.C.D. or Asperger's. When the parents are confronted with two sides of a kid, they're so quick to acknowledge the positive, the talented, the exceptional; they are often in denial over everything else." The very traits that make prodigies so successful in one arena - their obsessiveness, a stubborn refusal to conform, a blistering drive to win - can make them pariahs in the rest of life. Whatever else they may say, most teachers do not in fact appreciate creativity and critical thinking in their own students. "Off the Charts" is jammed with stories of small geniuses being kicked out of places of learning. Matt Savage spent two days in a Boston-area Montessori preschool before being expelled. Thanks to parents who had the financial and emotional resources to help him find his way, he is now, at age 25, a renowned jazz musician. Interestingly, some prodigies may actually do better when their eccentricities are seen by loving adults as disabilities first - and talents second. Hulbert tells the story of Jacob Barnett, born in 1998, who withdrew into autism as a toddler in Indiana. His parents tried every form of therapy they could find, before finally discovering that he could be drawn out through his captivation with astronomy. His mother, Kristine, took him to astronomy classes at the local university - not to jumpstart his genius but to help coax him back to life. "If I had stopped and let myself bask in the awe of Jake's amazing abilities - if I had stopped to ponder how unusual he really is - I don't think I could have been a good mother to him," she explained. The most vivid section of the book comes at the end, when Hulbert reunites with the musical prodigy Marc Yu, a decade after first interviewing him at age 6. With his mother's support, Yu had tried to ease up on his musical career and live a more normal life, an approach that had worked for other prodigies, including the child actress Shirley Temple. But Yu found that the strategies that worked at the keyboard were useless in high school, where no amount of discipline and focus could make him cool. The adorable, joke-cracking boy she'd remembered had grown into a lonely teenager. "I always expected things to go my way," Yu told Hulbert. "If I wanted it, I worked hard enough, I got it, and people loved me. That's no longer true, and I feel I exist in the shadow of popular kids." Yu's story reinforces one of Hulbert's central, if unsatisfying, findings: Children's needs change. If you think you've got a child figured out, you will be proved wrong momentarily. As Hulbert writes: "Prodigies offer reminders writ large that children, in the end, flout our best and worst intentions." And adults always overestimate their own influence. amanda ripley is a senior fellow at the Emerson Collective and the author, most recently, of "The Smartest Kids in the World."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 21, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
With quixotic humor, Jeffers takes children on a welcome to our planet tour by first pointing out Earth's position in space. Then he zooms in, crashing out of space and into the bright blues and greens of Earth. The crowded undersea is replete with a hot-pink octopus and colorful fish, the land with mountains and plains, and the sky with many constellations. And then come the people. In a busy double page, he shows 100 different people in various attire doing many occupations and activities. After that, more than 100 animals are accompanied by the cautionary words: They can't speak, though that's no reason not to be nice to them. The scenes day and night, rural and urban are depicted in full-bleed double-page spreads done in pen and watercolor. The resplendent purple globe of the Earth at night shows continents and teeming city lights, as Jeffers stresses, There are lots of us on here so be kind. A celebration of people all shapes and sizes, and of the beauty and mystery of our Earth.--Gepson, Lolly Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"These are the things I think you need to know," writes Jeffers (A Child of Books), dedicating this contemplative and heartfelt book to his young son. Each spread highlights aspects of this planet or life on it: the solar system, people and animals, the way time can seem to move slowly or quickly. "Use your time well," he advises. "It will be gone before you know it." Throughout, Jeffers channels the voice of an adult who knows things but perhaps still struggles to find the right words to explain them: "Generally how it works is that when the sun is out, it is daytime, and we do stuff." After discussing land, sea, and sky, he admits that the sky "can get pretty complicated" (dotted lines separate the "air we breathe" from the "stratosthingy" and "outer space," among other labeled celestial and meteorological entities). Moments of human intimacy jostle with scenes that inspire cosmic awe, and the broad diversity of Jeffers's candy-colored humans-musicians, hijabis, nuns, explorers, potentates-underscores the twin messages that "You're never alone on Earth" and that we're all in this together. Ages 3-7. Agent: Paul Moreton, Bell Lomax Moreton Agency. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Baby-Toddler-Jeffers uses his clever, effervescent cartoon style to welcome a new baby to planet Earth, "the big globe, floating in space, on which we live." He makes an effort to impart "the things I think you need to know" on his infant son by giving him an overview of the landscape via diagrams and fun drawings and what he might expect to encounter as he grows and becomes more mobile ("we'll talk some more about [the sea] once you've learned to swim.") His words are by turns philosophical, humorous, and practical. "People come in many shapes, sizes and colors. We may all look different, act different and sound different...but don't be fooled, we are all people." He stresses the need to be patient, to use one's words, and to be kind. He encourages the child to ask questions and leave notes behind for those who follow. Most importantly, the child should remember to look after this lonely planet as it's "all we've got." The playful narrative and lovely warm palette of the artwork are inviting and the sage advice, while a bit beyond even the most precocious of babies, will appeal to hip new parents embarking on their own uncharted territory. VERDICT A sweet and tender distillation of what every Earthling needs to know and might well spend a lifetime striving to achieve. A must-purchase for new parent shelves and anywhere the author's work is popular.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal © Copyright 2017. 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 Horn Book Review
Inspired by the birth of his son, Jeffers offers those new to the planet information and advice, which, boiled down, is: be kind to Earth, animals, and other humans. The book's potential for preachiness is skillfully avoided by its down-to-earth chattiness, its own admission that "you will figure lots of things out for yourself," and the lighthearted illustrations featuring amusing labels and asides. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Addressing his infant son about what it means to live on Earth, the author/illustrator offers a mix of planetary facts, quotations, bits of advice, and illustrations.The dedication page to 2-month-old Harlan includes, from the author, "These are the things / I think you need to know," as well as a quote from J.M. Barrie about the importance of kindness. Jeffers' fans will not be disappointed by the scant, lilting text and the boldly colored, stylized depictions of people, animals, and scenery. Themes include the physical planet, caring for the body, diversity of people and animals, time well spent, and caring for the planetwith kindness as an overarching element. The tone is unsentimental and conversational and laced with Jeffers' trademark wryness: "We know a bit about the sea, but we'll talk some more about that once you've learned to swim." The facts disclosed are rudimentary, as is the vocabularybut this entertains rather than bores, because readers are intermittently reminded that the book's audience is a baby. The double-page spread illustrating the "shapes, sizes and colors" of people is amazingly inclusive of ethnicities, abilities, and lifestyles (though the depiction of what seems to be an Arctic Native in furs speaks to the difficulty of balancing inclusion against stereotype in such an effort). Scattered throughout are funny, never snarky asidesas when a parrot corrects the assertion that animals don't talk and when part of the universe is labeled the "stratosthingy."Big ideas ably packed into little, bright packages. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
