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Developmental Behaviorial Pediatrics

Book Reviews

These book reviews are part of the Independent Learning Activities in the Developmental Behavior Pediatrics rotation. The reviews have been done by 2nd year pediatric residents on books aimed at children and parents based on common developmental and behavioral issues, popular children's literature or on a specific topic of child health.
Book reviews are listed by reviewer recommendation. PDFs of reviews can be retrieved by clicking on the book title.

Highly recommended:

• Big Red Barn. This book describes a day in the life of animals on a farm from sunrise to sunset. (Children)
• The Empty Place: A Child's Guide Through Grief. A third grader describes the emptiness and loneliness he sees and feels after the death of her big sister. He, likewise, experiences different emotions including confusion, fear and guilt as a result of the loss of his sibling. Helping him deal with the death is his babysitter who lost her brother in the past. As he confides in her, she provides him with ways to carry on. (Children)
• The Empty Room: Surviving the Loss of a Brother or Sister at Any Age. At the tender age of fourteen, the author's well known brother ("The Boy in the Bubble") died from severe aplastic anemia. More than two decades later, she describes in this book her personal journey commencing from the time that the diagnosis was made up to her current life situation focusing on the effects of losing her brother. To further understand the impact of her brother's loss on her, she interviewed other people who experienced the death of a sibling and compared it with her own and with existing psychosocial theories. (Parents, adolescents, professionals, other)
• Goodnight Moon. This classic children's book is intended as a bedtime story, as the title suggests, and is actually advertised on the back cover: "Everyone's favorite bedtime book." (Children)
• Last Child in the Woods. An assessment of the impact on health and development of children as their play has moved the move from the outdoors to indoor activities. (Parents/Profressional)
• Listening to Fear: Helping Kids Cope, from Nightmares to the Nightly News. The purpose of this book is to help parents understand how children's fears are similar to and differ from those of adults. (Parents)
• Living with Childhood Cancer: A Practical Guide to Help Families Cope. As the title suggests this book attempts to serve as a guidebook for families on how to cope after their child has been diagnosed with cancer. The book contains some emotional guidance and more practical advice how to deal with this disease. (Parents)
• Let Me Hear Your Voice. To describe a family's experience through the diagnosis, treatment, and daily life of having a child diagnosed with autism. (Parents, professonal)
• Maggie's American Dream: The Life and Times of a Black Family. Dr. Comer, a renowned child psychiatrist and associate dean at the Yale School of Medicine, provides a very personal and poignant narrative of his own life path and the central, quintessential role of his parents and his environment in his developmental process. (Parents, older children, and professionals)
• Miss Spider's Tea Party. In addition to nurturing imagination through anthropomorphism, the lesson that an individual’s character cannot be surmised merely by appearance or hearsay is promoted in Miss Spider’s Tea Party. The concepts of kindness and generosity are also stressed. Through Kirk’s clever rhyming text, children may further develop word pronunciation. Counting is also practiced via each of Miss Spider’s rejections from a sequential increase in number of insects. (Children)
• S.O.S. Help for Parents. Behavior modification aimed at parents to help with difficult behavior in children. (Parents, professionals, doctors)
• The Self Esteem Teacher. To remind all of us that cultivating a child’s self-esteem is essential to promote learning. (Teachers, parents, pediatricians, educators of all kinds)
• Toilet Training the Brazelton Way. A guide to helping parents learn when their child is ready to toilet train, and how to go about doing it. (Parents)
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The story entails the transformation of an egg into a caterpillar and finally into a butterfly. The story begins when a small caterpillar hatches from an egg and then spends seven days eating various foods, such as fruits, leaves, and even junk food. At the end of those seven days, the small caterpillar has grown into a large caterpillar. The caterpillar then makes a cocoon, spends two weeks inside of the cocoon, and then emerges as a beautiful butterfly. The book also introduces the scientific concept of metamorphosis and describes the transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly. The social concept that one cannot judge a book by its cover is also addressed, as demonstrated by the transformation of one animal into a completely different animal. (Children)
• What Do People Do All Day?. Introduce children to common occupations and industries, common vehicles and tools, and features of a money based economy. (Children)

Highly recommended for parents with specific problems/issues:

• A Terrible Thing Happened. This book serves to encourage children who have witnessed violence or trauma to share their thoughts and feelings with caring adults. (Children)
• Brian was Adopted. Brian and his mom discuss common questions children have about being adopted. The book also discusses questions other children at school ask him when they find out he is adopted. (Children)
• Chemo Girl. The book, written by a young cancer survivor, describes cancer treatment from the perspective of chemotherapy in the form of Chemo Girl. The superhero Chemo Girl is called upon to rid a young patient with Rhabdomyosarcoma. (Children)
• Good Enough Mother. Good-Enough Mother is a collection of essays written by a well-known working mother (Anchor of The Early Show on CBS) for mothers about the rewards and struggles of motherhood and the fine balance of family, career, and a personal life. (Parents)
• Supernanny. To guide parents in raising a child from birth to 5 years old. The book briefly reviews ages and stages, but mainly focuses on the how's of everyday activities and behaviors such as toilet training, eating, tantrums, and social skills. (Parents)
• The Unhappy Child. Discuss situations in a child/families life that can lead to child unhappiness such as divorce, school/peer problems, parental depression, sibling issues, step families and types of parenting. (Parents)
• What is Goodbye?. Jesse and Jerilyn's older brother died. In this book, their thoughts from the time they were informed of the death up to a year later were expressed in poetry. As they were of different developmental stages, their own interpretations of the same event were written side by side. (Children (8-12 years old), parents, professional)
• Why, Charlie Brown, Why? A Story About What Happens When a Friend Is Very Ill. Teaches children about serious illness, specifically leukemia. Children (and adults) will likely have a wide range of emotions when confronted with the illness of a friend or loved one. They may not understand the illness, how it is contracted and what treatment entails. They may feel a desire to protect those who are ill, but not have the knowledge to do so. They may also be afraid that it could happen to them. Familiar characters and common situations are explored to provide knowledge and comfort to readers. (Children, possibly parents)

May be useful to some parents:

• How Many Fish?. To help children learn to count, name colors, learn to read. (Children)
• There's a Nightmare in my Closet. Bedtime story, literacy, dispelling of childhood fear. (Parents with children, young children, residents on DBP rotation)

Would not recommend: No reviews in this category as of yet.