I was interested in reading Becoming Brilliant as an K-12 view point on education. I currently work in higher education assessment and have my MS in developmental psychology. While the book was inline with the topic that I was hoping it would discuss, I was underwhelmed by the inclusion of research. I also felt like the structure of the book could have been a bit more defined. It seemed like they kept going off on tangents.

I wondered at the target audience for this book. It seems geared towards parents, but does not really address parents through most of the book. The majority of the book seems geared towards educators, yet only provides basic information without going into as much depth. The book was ok, the information expressed was not, to my knowledge, inaccurate. It just did not seem to feel any particular gap in what is available.

I received this book from Netgally for free, however I ended up reading the book via audiobook from the library. All opinions expressed are my own.

A great read into the heart and brains of infants. I love this sort of book and it was fascinating to read. Lots of information and I highly recommend.

Have you talked to an elementary school student about their classes lately? I do it every day and it seems like the joy of learning has been left behind, perhaps with three hours of math each day. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsch-Pasek are education researchers and they know what the problem is--our schools are exclusively teaching content without teaching our children how to work together or discern which information is actually important. Becoming Brilliant demonstrates to parents and teachers that our education system is not working and proposes ways that we can help our kids succeed today and in their future careers.

I appreciated a lot of what Golinkoff and Hirsch-Pasek had to say in this book. I certainly agree that things like critical thinking, creativity, and communication are crucial for our children in school and in their adult lives as people with careers. The authors do a great job of giving specific examples of ways that parents can focus on each skill set, but I wish they had taken a little less time to get there. It doesn't take much to convince parents that their children need to know how to collaborate; greater emphasis on how to build these traits at home and convince school systems to incorporate them would have been great.

Becoming Brilliant
What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children
By Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
APA Life Tools May 2016
344 pages
Read via Netgalley

Honestly, I think this book is a bit hypocritical. It starts out at the beginning of the book talking about people buying fancy toys that are supposed to help make your baby smart but, yet you want people to read the book to help make a baby smarter? It was not a good read it was very boring.

I believe this book will mostly reinforce those things that parents already believe rather than expose them to new ideas or strategies.