DWD's Reviews

An Eye-Opening Book - A Must for Parents and Teachers Published in 2011 by Mariner Books. This is revised and updated from the 2002 edition. Rachel Simmons ' Odd Girl Out helped open up a mostly hidden world for me, a dad and 22 year teacher. Sure, I have lots of experience dealing with kids, but I was missing some of this subtle meanness because I am a guy and the minds of  most guys just don't work this way. Since Simmons completed her original work she has become a teacher and she can now add the perspective of an outsider to the tone of her original book which was based on a series of interviews with girls from around the country in a variety of schools.  The basic concept of the book is that girls bully one another in a way that goes under the radar in schools and at home. Unlike the overt taunting and physical violence that often happens in male bullying, girl bullying is more sly and includes such actions as shunning, sharing secrets, building alliances of frien

Often frustrating. Sometimes shocking. Never boring. Read by Tom Weiner Duration: 10.5 hours Blackstone Audio Unabridged. Robert A. Heinlein was recognized many times over as a master of the science fiction tale – he is a multiple winner of the Hugo award and the first recipient of the Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Heinlein is one of those golden age writers that moved science fiction from being stories strictly for kids to a separate and recognized literary genre for adults, too. Robert A. Heinlein  (1907-1988) Farnham’s Freehold is, at best, a difficult book. Perhaps books like this were a requirement when moving science fiction from a kid’s genre to an adult genre. It seems that Heinlein the iconoclast was out to irritate as many sensibilities as possible in an attempt to question some of society’s long held ideas about race, sex and the male-female relationships, even if it caused the story to suffer at the expense of all of that questioning.

A teacher's review Michael Gurian More informative than Boys and Girls Learn Differently , The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life is a fascinating look into the specific reasons why boys are doing so poorly in school nowadays. Very, very awful if you did not know - Boys are the overwhelming majority of special education students, are more likely to drop out, and are much less likely to attend college. Gurian's strategies to help come off as a bit vague - few concrete solutions are offered. As a teacher, I want to know what a 'boy-friendly' classroom looks like. Precious few good examples are provided. But, enough information is provided to at least alert the teacher that there is a problem and that he or she needs to be on the lookout for struggling boys. I would imagine, like most things in education, the answer is not simple and it requires quite a bit of individualization, which is difficult if, like me, you see

A teacher's review Michael Gurian I found Boys and Girls Learn Differently: A Guide for Teachers and Parents to be a useful and fascinating introduction to the general strengths and weaknesses of males and females in the classroom. Some may laugh or poke fun at the relatively old ideas that Michael Gurian is presenting as new in the areas of male/female brain differences. These may be old ideas in the biology lab, but someone needs to walk over to the schools of education across the country and inform them because the 'tabula rasa' theory (the mind is a blank slate and gender differences are entirely a product of culture, not nature) is alive and still kicking hard. The only complaint I have is that Gurian refers a lot to seminars and ongoing experiments in school designs that will be helpful in teaching to the strengths and weaknesses of girls and boys. However, he comes up a bit short in providing concrete examples of how to help both boys and gi

Rings true to this classroom teacher Daniel J. Kindlon As a classroom teacher that first came into the profession at the height of the Reviving Ophelia type of research done by Mary Pipher. I have participated in classes, seminars and training sessions about how girls are being short-changed in the classroom and in our culture. It was not until I ran across some research I was doing in my Master's Degree program some 15 years later that my eyes were opened to a new possibility: the girls are, on the whole, doing just fine. The boys, on the other hand, are falling by the wayside in heart-cringing numbers. Go to any public school and you can just about guarantee that 7 or more of the top ten will be girls. Look at the special education numbers and 7 out of 10 will be boys. Dan Kindlon 's Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World does not address what is going on with boys, but it does look at a relatively new phenom

Full of good advice about ALL boys and special education Jawanza Kunjufu While Jawanza Kunjufu, an author of nearly two dozen books, writes primarily for an African-American audience, Keeping Black Boys Out of Special Education is full of good observations about boys in special education in general. There is a growing concern about the number of boys in special education as compared to girls. Kunjufu joins more established authors such as Christina Hoff Sommers (' The War Against Boys ' ) and Michael Guiran (' Boys and Girls Learn Differently ') in pointing out that there is something wrong out there in the world of education as far as boys are concerned. Kunjufu gives wonderful advice about the questions parents should ask if they are brought in to the school to discuss placing their student into special education. His suggestions include signing nothing until you completely understand it, insisting on seeing what modifications have been done

Fill your mate's "love tank" Published by Northfield Publishing in 1996. 4 hours, 46 minutes. Read by the author, Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman The author, Gary Chapman, does an excellent job of narrating the audiobook version of  The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate . Chapman's thesis is, simply, that we all have a love tank, and it is best filled by two of 5 different love languages. If your spouse expresses his or her love to you in a love language that you don't speak than you will both be frustrated and your love tank will not be filled and eventually you will look for other ways to fill it. The five love languages are: -Quality Time -Words of Affirmation -Gifts -Acts of Service -Physical Touch Chapman provides plenty of concrete examples so that most listeners will be able to identify themselves or their spouse. He includes a section about expressing love to one's children as well using his

This teacher comments: One of the best non-fiction books I've read all year! I graduated from Indiana University in 1990 - just as the 'girls are fragile' movement was gaining momentum. I was taught the 'facts' that Sommers refers to in numerous in-services (for all of you non-teachers, many teacher in-services are attempts at teacher training in which a speaker comes and entertains or horrifies us with a speech that usually has little or no practical value - when I taught in the inner city it was usually the horrifying type: "these kids are all failing and blah-blah percent of them will end up dead or in jail and it's all because you didn't teach them how to multiply fractions or diagram a sentence correctly!"). Anyway, I did buy into some of the stuff about girls being fragile and being overrun in the classroom. I have heard the statistics Sommers skewers so completely and thoroughly and I swallowed many of them hook, line and sin

A quick and thought-provoking read The thesis of Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness , an exceedingly-well footnoted book, is that some on the ultra-left of the American political scene have pet theories that they espouse and that they hate it when facts do not bear out their theories. Among these are what Flynn calls "The Five Big Lies". The Five Big Lies are: 1. American women live under a patriarchy. 2. America is the World's leading threat to the environment. 3. America is a racist nation. 4. The US is an imperial power. 5. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Daniel J. Flynn Flynn quotes his opponents extensively and then rebuts their arguments with his own extensive research from a wide variery of sources (he has over 500 end-notes, often with commentary - not a small task). Flynn does not claim that the US is perfect in any of the above 5 areas. Far from it. He just submits that

Starts out strong, ends up tiresome Read by one of the authors, Allan Pease 3 discs 3 hours Why Men Don't Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes starts out with a bang, delving into a lot of the differences that drive men and women crazy. These are mostly humorous and mostly full of good advice. But, we never do find out about women and shoes, nor do we find the answers to some of the questions posed in the opening section, such as, "Why don't women initiate sex more often?" Barbara and Allan Pease There is interesting commentary on the reactions of men and women to retirement, why men switch the channels so often and the comments on men's behaviors in public restrooms is dead on accurate. However, I felt cheated that so much of the book (about 1/3 by my estimate as a listener) is about the physical characteristics that of the opposite sex that interest men and women. I felt that this was not germane to the topic at hand and really offered no

A different kind of Spenser book Spenser is back with a different type of mystery, and not necessarily for the better. I'm a big fan of a younger, tougher Spenser. A Spenser that was hassled by the cops, fought with the bad guys and generally spent his time wisecracking himself into and out of tough scrapes. Sadly, The Professional is not that. This one is filled full of relationship discussions (I think Oprah actually moderated some of the scenes!), including more of the endless talk between Spenser and Susan about the nature of their relationship. Lots of talk about sex, the role of sex in a love relationship and, of course, Susan and Spenser have sex about 47 times. Robert B. Parker The mystery is a simple blackmailing case that gets out of control. All of Spenser's "friends" make an appearance and most help him for no reason that I can ascertain except for shared history, including Vinnie, Ty-Bop, Tony Marcus and an oversexed Hawk. The ending is obvi

A Classic Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation is a classic. This is not sophisticated writing and the format is basic but Brokaw's interviews with dozens and dozens of veterans of World War II, their wives, their children and their comments on how the war affected them and the way they lived the rest of their lives is a loving tribute to his father's generation. Brokaw has sections on regular footsoldiers and sailors, soldiers who went on to become famous such as Casper Weinberger, Bob Dole, Andy Rooney and Julia Child. He also addresses the racism and sexism of the time (and incorrectly asserts that only the Japanese were forcibly removed - several East Coast Italians were removed to western states and their fishing boast were confiscated, although clearly the Japanese were treated much worse as a group). He also talks to soldiers who were wounded during the war and how that affected them. Tom Brokaw Interesting comment from former pacifist Andy Rooney about