Customer Reviews

Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood (Children's Literature and Culture, 17)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book will change your views on how to raise your kid and, in a deeper level, help understand the deadlock our society is in and how to try to break free of our habits of violence and destruction.
It analyzes the myths and books we feed our children and the subconscious message we hand to them everytime they go to a Disney movie or consume merchandising. It also explain the amount of violence they are directly subjeted too by unknowing and loving parents. Truly an eye opener.

Come and see a new intellectual baby! With this book, a new field is born: interpretation of literature from the perspective of a child's primal needs. Inventing the Child asserts two radical ideas: (1) that each work of literature reveals specific culturally sanctioned childhood violations of its author, and (2) that adultist ideology is necessarily propagated through literature, no matter how "great" that literature may be. J. Zornado has written an angry, impassioned, intellectually courageous book about childhood, literature, and adult blindness. His radical childhood studies perspective gives entirely new readings to Hamlet, Grimm's fairy tales, and Where the Wild Things Are, among other works. You don't have to agree with all his ideas--I don't agree with his second assertion above, if I understand it correctly--to be deeply impressed with what this book attempts and glad to embrace the new field it represents. Welcome to the world, Baby-as-yet-unnamed! (Radical childhood studies is not too catchy, but it will do for now.)

J. Zornado's clever and often humorous account on what it means to be a child is highly entertaining and thought provoking, touching on the works of Calvin, Freud, and Rousseau. The book delves deeply into the influence on the children of our culture through all mediums. A must read for all who are interested in the survival of our planet.

Inventing the Child is a book for every person. It is a masterpiece of insightful and passionate views on why our world has become the way it is(children killing one another etc.)...the ways that parents, culture and society tries to make children into what they think children should be. It helps to explain what is truly behind Walt Disney and his productions and why adults feel that they must dominate their children. It is a must read for anyone who has children of their own and for anyone who teaches children, it is also a must read for anyone who was invented as a child and is working through who they really are. J. Zornado has found and is helping the world to answer the question of why so much happens in our society that isn't "normal". Let us be so thankful he is teaching this to college students and to the world! I highly recommend this book to all!

This book has a keen approach and an insightful take on children's culture. As a student of J. Zornado and having read his book, I have gained a new perspective on children's literature and it's influences on children. While some of this information is quite difficult to swallow, I'm sure Dr. Zornado would reassure the reader by telling him or her, that this material is hard because it shatters the ideas that we have implanted in our minds....

Not a recommended book.
I have bought it following the recommendation of the author Daniel Quinn. However this book is a major disappointment.

It's a complicated text, with not a single new idea. It just keeps stating the obvious that children are:
1. Negatively affected by adult mistreatment.
2. Grow up to be unhappy and child mistreating adults.
3. The above is heavily tied to the culture and prevailing ideology.

Tell us something new...