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The Case
for Make Believe
Saving Play in a Commercialized World
In her new book, The Case for Make Believe, Linn argues that
while play is crucial to human development and children are born with
an innate capacity for make believe, the convergence of ubiquitous
technology and unfettered commercialism actually prevents them from
playing. In modern-day America, nurturing creative play is not
only counter-cultural - it threatens corporate profits.
Both timely and important, The Case for Make Believe helps
readers understand how crucial child's play is - and what parents and
educators can do to protect it. At the heart of the book are
stories of children at home, in school, and at a therapist's office
playing about real-life issues from entering kindergarten to a
sibling's death, revealing feelings they can't express directly, and
making meaning of an often confusing world.
In an era when toys come from television and media companies sell
videos as brain-builders for babies, Linn lays out the inextricable
links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to
preserve the space for make believe that children need to be happy and
to become productive adults.
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Consuming Kids
The Hostile Takeover of Childhood
In Consuming Kids,
psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at
the demographic advertisers call "the kid market," taking
readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern
childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the
focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans
to M&M counting books. All aspects of children's lives—their
health, education, creativity, and values—are at risk of being
compromised by their status in the marketplace.
Interweaving
real-life stories of marketing to children, child development theory,
the latest research, and what marketing experts themselves say about
their work, Consuming Kids reveals the magnitude of this problem and
shows what can be done about it.
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