Alissa Quart is an excellent writer of gifted talent, which if for no other reason makes "Hothouse Kids" worth reading. I recommend that the 'Contents' pages are viewed to see what topics are covered (use the "search inside" feature).
Book titles receive different interpretations from different people. From my own point of view, 'hothousing' implies a result-driven focus to harvest the greatest quantity of fruit from a single plant while protecting and alienating the plant from its natural environment, or in other words, forcing a living being to do something that it otherwise would not do. "Hothouse Kids" lives up to its title by clarifying that "The Dilemma of the Gifted Child" can be the result of parents attempting to harvest too much talent from gifted children.
The book's theme is structured on a series of observations and interviews with parents, organizations, teachers, and gifted children themselves. The writing style is lively, colorful, and possesses a quantity of good dry humor. Being written from the viewpoint of having been a child prodigy herself, Quark's choices of phrases reflect her skill as well as her own experiences of having been hothoused.
I purchased "Hothouse Kids" while researching prodigy biographies. It is rare to find a book written by the prodigy him/herself, and for those of us who are interested in hearing the opinions of the prodigy (and not the opinions of non-prodigies who wrongly believe they have an insight into the prodigious mind), it is quite a delight to catch a glimpse into Quart's likes and dislikes. Historically and psychologically, "Hothouse Kids" is an important book, regardless of whether a reader might agree or disagree with the author's opinions.
Modern society places much value in its belief that high intelligence is measurable through IQ tests, and Quart gives ample attention to how the belief is happily endorsed by makers of intelligence tests and educational curriculums. Quart rightly makes light of the "Edutainment" industry that manufactures and sells a wide array of educational toys, DVDs, and other products that claim to increase intelligence.
Two customer reviews at Amazon.com were written by individuals who said that they had been interviewed by Quart. The customers stated that Quart misquoted and altered some comments. It is an unfortunate reality that an author's early manuscript drafts can mysteriously become infested with obviously wrong information, and mistakes do happen, but mistakes are normally caught during the final edit. The full facts behind the customer reviews are unknown to me, and I do not know the extent of errors that might exist relative to the two interviews, but the errors are useful for illustrating two very important natures of all biographies: (1) all authors are human, and all humans make mistakes, and (2) no biography should be ever trusted to be one-hundred percent correct. On page 228, "Hothouse Kids" referenced information about William Sidis that was taken from Amy Wallace's "The Prodigy: A Biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy." Readers familiar with "Myths, Facts, and Lies About Prodigies - A Historiography of William James Sidis" will recognize how the historical errors about William Sidis that originated in the early twentieth century were found in "The Prodigy" and are now found in "Hothouse Kids" as well. The errors are not fatal, and the errors about Sidis are not the creation of Quart's, but it is still important to recognize that the errors exist and where they originated.
Over all, the book vividly lives up to its title, and there are several dozen excellent insights that further heighten the book's usefulness. One observation by Quart is from page 205: "One of the things that my research clarified for me was that there are actually very few deeply "gifted" kids with transcendent cognitive or artistic abilities; therefore kids are being incorrectly labeled as exceptionally gifted. The peril is that some children who have been led to believe they are highly gifted will suffer, like Icarus, in their later lives."
"Hothouse Kids" is an especially important book for biographers, all parents who might believe that their children are gifted, and everyone else that might enjoy learning about the 'gifted' industry.
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