cover image The Parent's Journal: Guide to Raising Great Kids

The Parent's Journal: Guide to Raising Great Kids

Bobbi Conner. Bantam Books, $13.95 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-553-37873-3

Conner, creator and host of public radio's weekly Parent's Journal, has compiled a surprisingly bland guide for parents with offspring ranging from infancy to age 19. Sound bites culled from more than 700 interviews with child-care experts conducted on the air during the past decade grace the margins and give this guide some zip, but the author's low-key prose fails to enhance her vast store of knowledge. Admitting that she's neither a pediatrician nor a nutritionist, Conner concentrates on such loftier subjects as how to instill courage, integrity, kindness and compassion and create ""great"" kids. While these are worthy aims indeed, the book's format, which presents information by age group, results in considerable repetition. Parents with more than one child may feel a sense of deja vu when they notice that the same advice often crops up verbatim under various age-group headings. Boxed information on how to make time for quality activities with kids or how to discourage a preschooler's whining is more useful than the platitudes frequently found in the main text. While few would argue with Conner's advice, her insistence that the ordinary is magical and that parents should make the most out of everyday experience swiftly wears thin and leaves the reader with a yen for the sharp, insightful interviews that inspired this book in the first place. (Apr.)