University professor Louis Fraiberg here assembles essays representing the lifework of his late wife, a celebrated child psychoanalyst and the author of the classic The Magic Years (1959). Though the jargon, detailed expositions of research techniques, literary analyses, and unavoidable repetition make this work more suited to scholars than curious parents, the many moving case studies of infants manifesting pathological defenses and of blind, nutritionally deficient, and behaviorally maladjusted children validate the nurturing parent's indispensable role. Highly recommended to public libraries lacking Fraiberg's earlier works and to collections serving social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators.

