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shirp's review against another edition
3.0
A good "layman"'s introduction to early childhood psychology. She mostly discusses pivotal experiments in child psych to prove the point that infants and children aren't quite the amoral, impulsive, unintelligent animals some would have us believe. She explores the philosophical implications of findings and it is often repetitive and can border on boring for those who have done more advanced studies in the discipline. Her personal experiences also don't always add much, and you can tell that she is the kind of Prof who loves to hear herself talk. I'd receommend this book for those interested in infancy and early childhood, philosophy, and psychology. It's not a parenting book at all, and isn't only geared towards those with children, but in my opinion it's important to understand the workings of young minds in order to be a good parent.
kevenwang's review against another edition
5.0
Fascinating. Should rewatch the babies doc on Netflix
lazwright's review
4.0
A delightful read that incorporates science into the realm of the consciousness of children. There are many wonderful points to the book, but the main one is that, in its entirety, it provides a place of reflection and contemplation for today's parent.
courtandspark's review against another edition
4.0
While the author's tone and references didn't always hit home with me, I appreciated a philosopher's view on development, love and parenting.
erikars's review against another edition
4.0
Throughout this book, Gopnik talks about what we know about how babies perceive the world from experiments. This knowledge, in turn, provides insight into some of the most fundamental aspects of human experiment: love, truth, meaning, reasoning. Children, it seems, have a profoundly different experience of the world than adults do, but these differences are what give the most insight into the human condition.
The conclusion sums this up well:
The conclusion sums this up well:
We can return to the questions we started at the beginning of this book. How is it possible for human beings to change? What does this tell us about children and childhood, especially very young children and very early childhood? There are three intertwined strands in the answer -- learning, counterfactuals, and caregiving, or more poetically, truth, imagination, and love. In science and philosophy these three aspects of human experience are often treated as if they were quite separate from one another -- epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics all have very different traditions. But for young children, truth, imagination, and love are inextricably intertwined.
emily_britton's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.75
Some interesting information here. Gopnik does a fairly good job of straddling the line between academic and pop writing styles.
jonathonjones's review against another edition
4.0
As a psychology book about how babies see the world, and how that develops through their first few hours, the book was very interesting and gave me a lot to think about. The philosophy bits were very weak, although I’m probably not the intended audience for them (which seemed to be people who had heard the word before and had a vague interest but knew nothing about it).
danielle_godin's review against another edition
3.0
Not my favourite book. Had some interesting facts in the 2nd half, but mostly just repeated the same details over and over while referencing some very common experiments (Stanford jail exp. for ex).