Erika Christakis

Author Website

Reviews

 

The Importance of Being Little:

“This superbly written book takes us inside the culture of current U.S. preschools … (Christakis’s) years of well-honed experience and breadth of knowledge about the underlying science lend weight to the growing belief that we must resuscitate childhood… Invites readers to sample the science of learning and helps to close the gap between what we know and what we do. Although the book speaks to how we might attain high-quality preschool education, it also challenges scientists to confront why findings in child development are often ignored in educational practice…”
—Science

“Her new ideas, analysis and methods serve to guide and support teachers, policy makers and parents in understanding the inner lives of children to stimulate their learning and ‘help young children be young children’.”
—New York Times

“Christakis . . . expertly weaves academic research, personal experience and anecdotal evidence into her book . . .“The Importance of Being Little” makes a bracing and convincing case that early education has reached a point of crisis . . . her book is a rare thing: a serious work of research that also happens to be well-written and personal . . . engaging and important.”
—The Washington Post

“Written for anyone who cares about preschool education in this country, The Importance of Being Little offers terrific insights into the world of children—the delight of imaginative play, the allure of nature, the power of emotion. Christakis poses compelling questions and imaginative solutions…She describes engaging classroom environments she’s seen in beguiling detail, and recounts evocative conversations she’s had and overheard among small people. Her respect and love for them is undeniable.”
—BookPage

“Fresh advice on how parents and teachers should be interacting with preschool children to achieve better overall results… a deep, provocative analysis of the current modes of teaching preschoolers and what should be changed to create a more effective learning environment for everyone.”
—Kirkus

“What kids need from grown-ups (but aren’t getting)…an impassioned plea for educators and parents to put down the worksheets and flash cards, ditch the tired craft projects (yes, you, Thanksgiving Handprint Turkey) and exotic vocabulary lessons, and double-down on one, simple word: play.”
—NPR.org

“Honestly addressing every aspect of a child’s education, the author’s intent here is not to show how to fix things but to start an exchange that encourages us to think differently about education in the early years.”
—Library Journal (Starred review)

“Sophisticated…Christakis’s rich experience and attentiveness to the details of child behavior and psychology give her approach the power of practical real-world experience.”
—Publishers Weekly

“One of the most intelligent, compelling, and funniest books I’ve read about children in a long time. Her prose sparkles…Her critique of America’s early childhood programs is sharp, but humane…There’s no underestimating children here: this woman is on their side…Her faith in “these strong, small characters” infuses the book with moral authority, which she wears lightly, revealing her foibles as a professional and parent, and dispensing folksy wisdom from her own vividly evoked childish escapades…we abandon (Christakis’s argument) at our peril.”
—Susan Ochshorn, ECE PolicyMatters

“The Importance of being little is a must-read for anyone with a two- to five-year-old, as well as for preschool professionals. In an ideal world, Christakis, a true defender of childhood, would have a national position in early childhood education.”
—Diana Divecha, The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

“Erika Christakis has her pulse on modern American education, and she wants to help you understand it. She helps explain the doom and gloom so many parents of preschoolers feel about education, providing a much needed context to better understand it—and, hopefully, change it….This mom would encourage any parent of a young toddler to pick up a copy. Arm yourself with the information you will need to be an effective advocate for your child. Her language is accessible, engaging and flows easily. Her research and insights made a believer out of me, while also helping me see a clear path to preserving the childhood I want for my kids.”
—Mom.me

“[Christakis’s] insights into raising little ones are eye-opening even for the most involved mamas. Actually, especially for them.”
–Motherly

“If only adults observed little children with half the energetic curiosity that little children bring to their scrutiny of adults! That, Erika Christakis argues in her wonderful book, is the key to making preschools the exciting and interesting places kids really need. For a guide to keen-eyed appreciation of preschoolers’ amazing powers, you can’t find a better one than Christakis. Read The Importance of Being Little and you won’t look at kids, or classrooms, the same way again.”
—Ann Hulbert, author of Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children

“Drawing on a wealth of research and clinical experience, Christakis deftly diagnoses one of the most urgent problems of our times and offers concrete recommendations for dealing with it, at the heart of which is the startlingly humane recognition that children are usually far more intelligent and perceptive than we assume, and possess hidden powers of imagination, sociability, and self-discovery. Learned, balanced, and hopeful, this compellingly argued and engagingly written work will not only take its place as a standard reference on early childhood education but, because ‘we are all someone’s child,’ will be of great interest to everyone concerned with the future of our nation and democratic culture.”
—Orlando Patterson, John Cowles Professor of Sociology, Harvard, and Editor of The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth

“A brilliant, altogether original, impeccably researched but also deeply heartfelt call to action. Just as our environment is in grave danger, so is what Christakis calls ‘the habitat of childhood.’ Her advice—practical, authoritative, but offered with the loving, personal concern of the mother and teacher that she is—soars beyond sensible into the realm of wise, disruptive, and irresistible. A tour de force.”
—Edward Hallowell, M.D., author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness and Driven to Distraction

“Teach your children well. It’s easier to sing than to do. Erika Christakis wants to foment a revolution in early childhood education, and with this deeply insightful, scientifically grounded, and utterly original book, she just may get her way.”
—Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness

“As the experts have bombarded parents with contradictory and ever more demanding advice, childrearing has become more confusing than ever, and the children themselves seem to have been left out of the picture. Parents, caregivers, teachers, and policy makers could have no surer guide through this morass than Erika Christakis. With scientific acumen, irreverent good sense, and a novelist’s eye for human detail, Christakis offers us a judicious view of the new and old realities of bringing up children.”
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of The Language Instinct and The Blank Slate

“Remarkably well-researched, erudite and concise, Erika Christakis offers parents and teachers alike a developmentally informed perspective on how preschool children learn best, along with a no-nonsense prescription for how to get them there…if only we adults with our love for top-down instructional methods and endless proliferation of testing can learn to activate out kids’ innate curiosity, support their natural scientific and philosophical wonder, and simply get out of their way.”
—Jess P. Shatkin, MD, MPH, Vice Chair for Education, The Child Study Center at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU College of Arts and Science