cover image Unplugging the Plug-In Drug

Unplugging the Plug-In Drug

Marie Winn. Penguin Books, $7.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-14-008895-3

Ten years after the appearance of The Plug-In Drug, Winn carries on her crusade to alert America to the detrimental effects that watching hours of televisionany program, ""good'' or ``bad''has on a child's social and intellectual development. An organizer of ``TV Turn-Off'' weeks and months for families, classes and schools, Winn here outlines how readers can create their own TV boycotts and offers advice on how to get children to agree to give up TV and what to do with the resulting free time. Besides bringing kids to books and giving couch potatoes an opportunity to exercise, such events can, she maintains, contribute to greater family interaction and challenge children's resourcefulness at play. Although Winn's evangelical zeal and rigidly censorious view of TV may turn off readers, this is a useful guide for worried parents and teachers. (October)