Bookshop

Boys

HOME / INDEX  

Now available: Purchase the book from your nearest Amazon store by clicking on the flag

Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.co.uk


 

The wonder of boys: What parents, mentors and educators can do to shape boys into exceptional men
By Michael Gurian
 

Book review:
 In the thoughtful and provocative The Wonder of Boys: What Parents, Mentors, and Educators Can Do to Shape Boys into Exceptional Men, therapist and educator Michael Gurian takes a close look at modern boyhood. Gurian asserts that the biological and neurological differences between boys and girls need to be accounted for and nourished in order to raise healthy, happy boys. In discussing boy culture--and the roles of competition, aggression, and physical risk taking--the author concludes, �It's not boy culture that's inherently flawed; it's the way we manage it.� If the natural, testosterone-based impulses of boys are squelched or ignored, Gurian posits, such biological truths may find their way to the surface in other, more negative behaviors. He suggests that boys do best when they are part of a �tribe,� three families that include: a birth or adoptive family; an extended family of friends, teachers, peers, and mentors; and the �family� of outside culture, media, religious institutions, and community figures. The Wonder of Boys offers advice on how to understand and build strong father/son and mother/son relationships, stresses the importance of healthy discipline, and suggests methods of teaching boys about sex, relationships, and spirituality. Parents and teachers of boys will find this book to be an insightful read.

Book Description
 The author describes in an insightful and practical way what boys need to become strong, responsible, sensitive men. Instead of encouraging us to stifle boys' natural propensities for competition and aggression, the author offers effective and practical guidelines for channeling them.
 

back to top 

 

A fine young man: What parents, mentors and educators can do to shape adolescent boys
By Michael Gurian

 

 

 

Book description:
Building on the success of his guide to raising healthy boys, Michael Gurian has written the next chapter � a book focussing on the much-maligned adolescent male. Gurian asserts, �We do not understand adolescent male development, therefore are unable to give our adolescent males the kind of love they need to become fully responsible, loving, and wise men.� Adolescent boys may appear to be self-sufficient, but Gurian asserts that they need their parents and elders desperately. The author carefully illustrates what we � as their parents, mentors and elders � need to know about male adolescent, and what we can do to aid them on their journey to adulthood.
In the face of many sociologists and scholars who strongly declare the contrary, Gurain claims a biological basis for many male behavioral traits. In A Fine Young Man, he employs convincing data from scientific studies on neurological development to assert that female and male brains have significant difference, and that testosterone plays an important role in male development and behavior. But A Fine Young Man offers far more than a theory. Gurian's argument are firmly rooted in reality, and he offers specific suggestions for typical family dilemmas. He breaks down the stages of development into preadolescence, early, middle, and late adolescence; discusses education and the role of media; and suggests ways to keep aggression ( caused in part by the testosterone flooding the adolescent male brain) from becoming violent. In a social sense, Gurian says, adolescent boys are most undernourished population, and A Fine Young Man encapsulates his hope that our neglected young men receive the nurturing they need.
 

back to top 

 

Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood
By William S. Pollack

Book review:
Reading the author William Pollack's Real boys it doesn't take long to find out that being a boy these days isn't all fun and games. As co-director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical Center, Pollack has seen behind the stoic masks of troubled modern boys as they struggle to cope with the mixed messages, conflicting expectations and increasingly complex demands they receive from our evolving society. "New research shows that boys are faring less well... that many boys have remarkably fragile self-esteems, and that rates of both depression and suicide in boys are frighteningly on the rise."
What are parents to do? They could start by listening to the author's thoughts on contemporary child-rearing techniques, analysis of the root causes many male behaviors problems and recommendations for avoiding all-too-common pitfalls. In Real Boys, Pollack draws upon nearly two decades of research to support his theories and makes impressive assault on the popular myths surrounding the conventional definition of masculinity. While reading it is important to remember that Pollack is a psychiatrist not a professional narrator. His enunciation is less than perfect and his reading sometimes strikes a clinical tone, but his intelligent writing and the obvious concern he holds for this important subject help carry a passionate message and compensate for any shortcomings.

Book Description
Featuring a new preface by the author on how parents can make a difference. With author appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, 20 /20 and NPR's Fresh Air, and featuring articles in Newsweek, Time, and The New York Times, Real Boys is one of the most talked-about and influential books published this year.
Based on William Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School over two decades, Real Boys explores why many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really like, says Pollack, can we help them develop more self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression, love and sexuality, drugs and alcohol, divorce, and violence.
 

back to top 

 

 

Lost boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save them
 By Claire Reeves

Book review:
Striking a sober but ultimately hopeful note, psychologist and Cornell University professor Garbarino (Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment) lends his voice to the growing chorus of concern about the difficulties boys face in their journey to manhood. We live in dangerous times, he asserts, citing the ready availability of guns (nearly half of all American households contain one) and the escalating rate of youth homicide (which increased 168% in the past decade alone). Noting that the highly publicized killings by children of the 1997/1998 school year have served as a kind of wake-up call, Garbarino devotes the first part of his book to examining the roots of violence among boys. He traces it to class and race issues, as well as risk factors such as child neglect, parental abandonment, physical and emotional abuse, spiritual emptiness and a culture that legitimizes violence in movies, television and video games. In the second half, he outlines how involved adults might prevent the downward spiral by identifying and treating patterns of aggression early in a boys life, and how providing the proper spiritual, psychological and social anchors can keep a troubled boy from drifting into violence. Garbarino effectively illustrates his points with stories of his own work with violent boys. Solidly researched and written, this book is of equal value to parents, educators, family therapists and other professionals. It could easily serve as a blueprint for preventing more tragedies like the ones in Jonesboro, Ark.

Book Description
In the past few years our national consciousness has been altered by haunting images of mass slaughters in American high schools, carried out by troubled young boys with guns. It's now clear that no matter where we live or how hard we try as parents, our children are likely to be going to school with boys who are capable of getting guns and pulling triggers. What has caused teen violence to spread from the urban war-zones of large cities right into the country's heartland? And what can we do to stop this terrifying trend?
 


back to top 

 


Raising Cain: Protecting the emotional life of boys
by Daniel J. Kindlon and Michael Thompson

Book review:
Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher's groundbreaking book, exposed the toxic environment faced by adolescent girls in our society. Now, from the same publisher, comes Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, which does the same for adolescent boys. Boys suffer from a too-narrow definition of masculinity, the authors assert as they expose and discuss the relationship between vulnerability and developing sexuality, the "culture of cruelty" boys live in, the "tyranny of toughness," the disadvantages of being a boy in elementary school, how boys' emotional lives are squelched, and what we, as a society, can do about all this without turning "boys into girls." "Our premise is that boys will be better off if boys are better understood--and if they are encouraged to become more emotionally literate," the authors assert. As a tool for change, Kindlon and Thompsom present the well-developed "What Boys Need," seven points that reach far beyond the ordinary psychobabble checklist and slogan list. Kindlon (researcher and psychology professor at Harvard and practicing psychotherapist specializing in boys) and Thompson (child psychologist, workshop leader, and staff psychologist of an all-boys school) have created a chilling portrait of male adolescence in America. Through personal stories and theoretical discussion, this well-needed book plumbs the well of sadness, anger, and fear in America's teenage sons.

Book description:
The stunning success of Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher's landmark book, showed a true and pressing need to address the emotional lives of girls. Now, finally, here is the book that answers our equally timely and critical need to understand our boys.
In Raising Cain, Dan Kindlon, Ph.D., and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., two of the country's leading child psychologists, share what they have learned in more than thirty-five years of combined experience working with boys and their families. They reveal a nation of boys who are hurting--sad, afraid, angry, and silent. Statistics point to an alarming number of young boys at high risk for suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, violence and loneliness. Kindlon and Thompson set out to answer this basic, crucial question: What do boys need that they're not getting? They illuminate the forces that threaten our boys, teaching them to believe that "cool" equals macho strength and stoicism. Cutting through outdated theories of "mother blame," "boy biology," and "testosterone," Kindlon and Thompson shed light on the destructive emotional training our boys receive--the emotional miseducation of boys.
Through moving case studies and cutting-edge research, Raising Cain paints a portrait of boys systematically steered away from their emotional lives by adults and the peer "culture of cruelty"� boys who receive little encouragement to develop qualities such as compassion, sensitivity, and warmth. The good news is that this doesn't have to happen. There is much we can do to prevent it.

Kindlon and Thompson make a compelling case that emotional literacy is the most valuable gift we can offer our sons, urging parents to recognize the price boys pay when we hold them to an impossible standard of manhood. They identify the social and emotional challenges that boys encounter in school and show how parents can help boys cultivate emotional awareness and empathy � giving them the vital connections and support they need to navigate the social pressures of youth.

Powerfully written and deeply felt, Raising Cain will forever change the way we see our sons and will transform the way we help them to become happy and fulfilled young men
 


back to top 


 

Raising boys: Why boys are different � and how to help them become happy and well-balanced men
By Steve Biddulph

Book review:
Australian family therapist Biddulph (Manhood) joins the chorus of counselors calling for a focused, supportive approach to parenting boys. Citing such gender specific risks facing boys as a higher percentage of learning disabilities to greater threats of violence and suicide, Biddulph maps out parenting strategies for three distinct stages of growth, from birth to six years, from six to 14, and from 14 to adult. Choosing not to mince words, he advises fathers, for instance, "if you routinely work a fifty-five or sixty-hour week, including travel time, you just won't cut it as a dad." Citing studies that show boys are "more prone than girls to separation anxiety," he suggests keeping boys out of child care if possible before the age of three. He recommends delaying school entrance by a year to give boys time to develop fine motor skills, and calls sports a "double-edged sword" which, while enormously beneficial, can also encourage negative traits if sportsmanship is eclipsed by an obsession with winning. Biddulph delves into physiological matters, examining and explaining the role testosterone plays in shaping male children, and talking frankly about sexuality. Enhanced by plentiful sidebars, photos and cartoons, the material is presented in digestible chunks, and each chapter wraps up with a summary section, "In a Nutshell." This highly practical guide offers valuable perspectives to parents of both boys and girls.
 

 

Reaching up for manhood: Transforming lives of boys in America
By Geoffrey Canada
 

Book review:
�The president and CEO of the Rheedlen Centers for Children Families, an award-winning child-advocacy agency, Canada (Fist Stick Knife Gun, LJ 5/15/95) grew up on tough South Bronx streets, where he witnessed friends dying by the handful. Recounting his childhood at midlife, he powerfully depicts what children face in today's world, especially the crippling problems of African American boys. Canada asserts that we are facing a crisis situation; gender stress, misperceptions of the male role, and male myths have led many young men on a path to self-destruction. The author emphasizes the necessity of building strong father-son bonds to help boys reach manhood and to perpetuate good father instincts. His book answers the tough questions: "How did things get like this?" and "What can we do?" Recommended for all libraries.?
A call to assist boys in their treacherous journey to adulthood rings briefly with truth.

Book Description
The author of Fist Stick Knife Gun brings powerful new insight to the lives of boys in America today: "More and more I have become concerned with what boys think they should be, and what they believe it means to be a man." He lays out the little-understood history of drugs and their marketing to inner-city boys and takes a hard look at the issue of too-early sex, showing us, through a pointed story of his own sexual education on the streets, how the combination of age-old urges with new cultural forces and mores has created a volatile sexual terrain for boys. Canada writes indelibly of the young boy he once was and of the crucial issues �fatherhood, healing, mentors, self-esteem, faith, and more �that must be negotiated as boys in America reach up for manhood.
Boys are conditioned not to let on that it hurts, never to say, "I'm still scared." I have come to see that in teaching boys to deny their own pain we inadvertently teach them to deny the pain of others. . . . We must remember to tell them, "I know it hurts. Come let me hold you. I'll hold you until it stops. And if you find out that the hurt comes back, I'll hold you again. I'll hold you until you're healed."
"Reaching Up for Manhood took me by surprise, because it is so tender, and so unpretentious, and so personal. It's a beautiful story, simply told �honest, deeply sensitive, and morally empowering �by one of the few authentic heroes of New York and one of the best friends children have, or ever will have, in our nation."