By Tessa Livingstone
(Bantam Press, 15)
Reviewed by Jennie Lindon, psychologist and early years consultant This book accompanies the BBC television series that is following 25 children born at the beginning of the millennium through to their 21st birthday. This book combines highlights from the lives of those children and their families with some valuable information about parenting through the first five years of childhood. The advice about play resources is helpful and includes a suitable warning for parents about some commercial products. The discussion around positive discipline is sound and helpful.
Yet the content and style of the book is a mixed buffet. You will find well-balanced material like the discussion around early communication (from page 86). Then the reader encounters sweeping generalisations about birth order (page 95). The style of some sections fits an information and advice book for parents and other carers but in others seems more like a glossy magazine with quizzes, such as the unwise invitation for parents to score their child's personality.
The book is generously illustrated and most photos are closely linked to the text on the page. Parents and early years practitioners could find useful information in this book. But it would have been improved by a clearer sense of purpose and some firm editing.
