Old MacDonald had a Woodshop by Lisa Shulman and illustrated by Ashley Wolff
Reviewed by Connie Shugart, Assistant Project Coordinator, STARNET Regions I & III
In this wonderful twist, Old MacDonald has a woodshop and in her shop she has all kinds of tools that make fabulous sounds. She is working on a project and one by one the animals come in to see what is going on and begin to help. In this version you have a zztt zztt, a rurr rurr, a tap tap, a chip chip, a scritch scratch, a squeak squeak, and a swish swash. At one point there is even a tap ouch when the goat misses with the hammer. At the end, all of the baby animals join them in the shop to see what they have been working so hard to build. With delightful illustrations this book introduces a variety of tools that the children may have an opportunity to use in the classroom. This would be an excellent book to have in your block and woodworking centers.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. and Maria Szalavitz
Reviewed by Carol Weisheit, STARNET Early Childhood Resource Specialist
How unusual that an M.D. and a Ph.D. writes a book that you not only understand, but makes you focus on your interactions with children in a whole new way. Dr. Bruce Perry, a Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, reflects on the hundreds, if not thousands, of children he has seen as a physician and a psychiatrist, to bring us a book which reveals the critical nature of attachment and bonding and what can go horribly wrong when children are traumatized at an early age.
Sandy, four years old, witnesses the murder of her mother, has her own throat slit and is bounced from foster home to foster home for over a year and never receives mental health services. An infant boy, Conner, languishes in his crib all day while his care provider leaves the house for another job returning before his mother returns from work. Another child, Justin, living with his grandmother for 11 months until her death, was raised in a cage by his grandmother's boyfriend until he was six years old. All of these children have experienced unimaginable trauma in their young lives and experienced severe delays in social-emotional development, language development, and motor development. Dr. Perry's discussion about brain development, particularly around neural development, describes how important early positive experiences are on the developing brain. The neural system is shaped by patterned, repeated experiences and stays with a child forever. If a child suffers trauma, but has had positive experiences early which have imprinted on the brain, with proper mental health support, they can often recover and lead normal productive lives.
Dr. Perry presents what he believes are "fundamental elements required for optimal human mental health." First, we need to provide an "infant- and child-literate society, where everyone who has or works with children knows what to expect." Dr. Perry mentions how many of our current childcare practices are detrimental to our children. He uses as an example, a large childcare center serving 3-5 year olds in California established a rule that adults could not touch the children. As Perry points out, all children need healthy touch. Without it, infants have died.
Second, Perry states that schools have focused almost exclusively on cognitive development and almost completely ignored a child's emotional and physical needs. We need to provide more than words, lessons, and organized activities for children to develop friendship skills and develop play skills. Unfortunately, many schools have cut back on recess, physical education, and the arts which are the very activities which allow children to develop these needed skills.
Third, the idea of taking all risk from a child's life doesn't make much sense. Recognizing that "not all stress is bad, children require challenges and risks as well as safety." The idea that a childhood would be risk free is not realistic and when we expect to protect our children from all risks, we deny them the opportunity to develop coping skills and to experience the effects of their decisions. Since the decision-making area of the brain does not fully develop until at least the early twenties, a zero-tolerance society denies children the opportunity to develop these crucial skills.
Lastly, reducing violence that a child experiences (whether being the victim or witnessing such violence) has a profound effect in determining whether a child will grow up violent. "To build a society that emphasizes 'the better angels' of our nature, limiting a child's exposure to such violence is important...As a result, changing many little negative influences could ultimately have a large effect."
It's tempting to think that traumatized children are hopeless and beyond help. However, this book illustrates the importance of positive early experiences in a young child's life in order to create positive neural connections within the brain. In work with young children or teenagers, positive interactions from caring adults impact "normally" developing children as well as those children who have been traumatized. Every person who works with children, traumatized or not, should read this book!