Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World

I was excited to read Susan Linn's newest book, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World, when I was contacted to review it.

I am of the curmudgeon-old-school ways, the type to hand my daughter a huge cardboard box but refuse her a Leapster. I just can't handle toys that tell you how to play with them or books that read themselves to you. That's what parents -- and ultimately, kids themselves -- are for.

So Linn was pretty much preaching to the choir with me. She's worked with Mr. Rogers and makes a convincing case for make believe, backed up by formidable research. It's totally scary how many toys are made to do one specific purpose. Even Legos now come in screwed-up kits that only allow you to fashion them in one way. I can't handle it.

Linn gave me hope for the future, though. She encouraged parents to allow kids to act out their frustrations through play and not get freaked out if the kid pretends to leave the baby doll in the freezer. I admit I used to get completely weebed when my daughter played that the baby had been bad and had to be punished, but Linn posits this play is just kids learning to work through authority structures. I know I eased off a lot after reading this book and started letting my daughter just play what she wanted.

Part of me is just so totally relieved she knows how to play without having it explained to her by a robot.

Cat Ladies

When The Editor Across the Aisle showed me the trailer for the documentary Cat Ladies, I knew I had to secure a screener for review.

Meow. She collects their whiskers. 

We howled with laughter when we realized the documentary was, indeed, about cat ladies, which I would totally be if left to my own devices and didn't fear my house smelling like cats. And if Beloved didn't exist. He is very tolerant of Petunia Cookie Dough, but more than one? Katie, bar the door. You know, thinking about it more, I wouldn't ever be a cat lady. But I do like cats.

I was expecting sort of a funny movie. Instead, I was disturbed. And sort of sad.

But also fascinated -- and isn't that what a good documentary is designed to engender? Fascination with its subject? Maybe enough discomfort to get you examine your life?

 
"They take care of me by letting me take care of them."
 
They all kept saying "I don't understand why people call me 'the crazy cat lady.'"

One of them has 127 cats. She didn't even know how many she had until she counted them.

EEEK.

But you can't look away. The themes here are so uniquely human. It's so not about the cats.

 

The Double-Daring Book for Girls

I love just about anything Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz do. I loved The Daring Book for Girls, and their follow-up, The Double-Daring Book for Girls, built on the first nicely.

 

There's not a great detraction from the first book. The Double-Daring Book for Girls is a hodge-podge of instructions, definitions and recipes for everything from sailing phrases to calligraphy to optical illusions to The Nobel Prize. It's an old-school looking hardback with that awesome 5th-grade-textbook font and thick pages that smell like the second floor of your childhood library. I'm excited my daughter is getting older and will be able to crack the spines on these books soon. They make me feel like a girl again.

A Is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges

Michelle Hernandez is a former assistant director of admissions at Dartmouth College. In her book, A is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges, she describes in intimate detail the algorithm used by the Ivies to rank students based on class rank, class type, extracurriculars, test scores, and oh, yes, G.P.A.

 

I'll admit I didn't read this book cover-to-cover, because it's a reference book. I think if I were really interested in getting into an Ivy League school, I would've been fascinated. When I agreed to review the book, I was thinking it would be more narrative than it actually is, so as an intermediately degreed 35-year-old, I was bored. I'm not planning to get a PhD, and I'm not planning to encourage my five-year-old to start taking advanced placement journal writing in kindergarten to woo Yale. However, I know if I did want her to go to the Ivies? I might consider starting now.

The book discusses sports, legacies, financial aid, communication between schools and other -- frankly -- insider topics. Hernandez does a good job -- she's startlingly transparent -- but be prepared for a very dense and statistics-filled tome that will probably depress you and your little Ivy-tastic kiddo just a wee bit. They don't call it the Ivy League for nothing.