Parenting is complex. Our intuition, our personality, our child’s unique temperament, our family wisdom, and, honestly, sheer accident and trial-and-error all play a role. But there is also a growing body of research and reflective writing that provides parents with data and insight to inform our choices and philosophies.
Enter The Brilliant Book Club!
The Brilliant Book Club is a collaborative project among five bloggers: Lauren Apfel of Omnimom, Deb CG of Urban Moo Cow, Sarah Rudell Beach of Left Brain Buddha, Jessica Smock of School of Smock and Stephanie Sprenger (Me!) of Mommy, For Real.
We all love reading non-fiction. Though as parents we are busy, we still want to read thought-provoking books and share our considerations with one another.
The Brilliant Book Club is for parents who want to read the latest books about parenting — from research-based books on parenting practice to books that reflect on the emotional and personal aspects of childrearing.
Every other month, we will select a recent book about parenting. Over eight weeks, we will invite you to read along with us, and share your ideas with us on Facebook, Twitter and our blogs. On the last Monday of each month, each of us will share posts of our thoughts about the current selection and our own unique perspective on it as parents.
We encourage you to read, reflect and share with us as we illuminate research and insights that can help us all shine.
Read. Reflect. Share. Shine.
The Brilliant Book Club
Our first book pick is Hilary Levey Friedman’s Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture.
From the back of the book:
Why do American children participate in so many adult-run activities outside of the home, especially when family time is so scarce? By analyzing the roots of these competitive afterschool activities and their contemporary effects, Playing to Win contextualizes elementary school-age children’s activities, and suggests they have become proving grounds for success in the tournament of life—especially when it comes to coveted admission to elite universities, and beyond.
In offering a behind-the-scenes look at how “Tiger Moms” evolve, Playing to Win introduces concepts like competitive kid capital, the carving up of honor, and pink warrior girls. Perfect for those interested in childhood and family, education, gender, and inequality, Playing to Win details the structures shaping American children’s lives as they learn how to play to win.
And here is an August 6, 2013 post in The Atlantic adapted from the book: “Soccer Isn’t for Girly-Girls? How Parents Pick the Sports Their Daughters Play” to whet your appetite.
Our first post on the book will be on Monday, September 30, 2013. We encourage you to read the book and join the dialogue on our Facebook page, on Twitter with the hashtag #BrilliantBooks and on our blogs. You can also follow our Pinterest board here, and find us on Google + here.
Enter the Giveaway
To encourage you even further to join us, we are giving away a copy of the book to one lucky participant! To enter, click the Rafflecopter link below and do one (or all!) of the following actions, including liking The Brilliant Book Club on Facebook, tweeting about us with the hashtag #BrilliantBooks or leaving a comment below. You can also get credit for the entry by liking and following us individually.
We will announce the winner next Tuesday, September 10th, in our last post in the Around the World series, in which we have been discussing Parenting Without Borders.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Be sure to follow us all on your social media channel(s) of choice to keep up with the latest!
Lauren
Blog: Omnimom
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter @LaurenApfel
Deb
Blog: Urban Moo Cow
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter @UrbanMooCow
G+
Pinterest
Sarah
Blog: Left Brain Buddha
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter @LeftBrainBuddha
G+
Jessica
Blog: School of Smock
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter @SchoolofSmock
G+
Pinterest
Stephanie
Blog: Mommy, For Real
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter @MommyIsForReal
G+
Pinterest
What do you think of the new endeavor?
This is great! Will be visiting regularly!
I absolutely love that you are doing this!! I can’t wait to participate!! –Lisa
My first BFF was Sharon Simons. She lived next door to me!
Truly fantastic and must admit I was seriously just lamenting last night that I am not reading books much anymore lately with all my other activities and want to read more books again. so thank you for sharing this here with all of us!!
This is so wonderful! You all had such wonderful insights about the Parenting Around The World book. I am excite to read along and “hear” everyone’s thoughts about these new books!
I heart book clubs. Lately, as I’m pondering jumping into parenthood, I’ve been thinking about childrearing styles, books about parenting, what I don’t want to do as a parent…
So even though I’m not a parent, I will be following!
What a fabulous idea, I love it and am in! My favorite parenting book was actually Buddhism for Mother’s with Young Children.
PS- you should have a GoodReads shelf for this, too!
You guys are SO COOL. What a great idea! So are you going to take a chapter at a time? Or each post about a different part of the book? I love it. Congratulations!
This sounds fabulous! I love the idea. I hope I am not overcommitting, but I will be reading/blogging along with you!
Very cool! It’s a great idea. I can’t wait to hear more.
Very cool. I’ve always wanted to start a virtual book club but when there’s a deadline I can’t ever be ready.