Rating: 
Summary: Sweet but oversimplified
Review: The authors of this book create a sweet cheerleader-like portrait of boys that attributes their only challenges to a lack of emotional range. It's really a one-note book and many of the vignettes in it seem superficial and don't ring true. I didn't like this book nearly as much as REAL BOYS by William Pollack. Pollack's book really shows us what it's like to be a boy in America today and gives lots of helpful hints to parents about what to do. I got numbed out reading Raising Cain and had to push myself to finish reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Shared Responsibility
Review: I wish this book had been available to me when my three sons were boys, when I was coaching them and other boys, interacting with their male friends in social situations; also when I was teaching and coaching in two New England boarding schools over a period of 13 years. I am grateful for the book now as I interact with my young grandsons. The authors suggest how to protect "the emotional life of boys" and their counsel is invaluable. Most parents are well-prepared to provide food, shelter, and clothing to their children. Most grandparents do all they can to provide material assistance to their sons and daughters who are parents. My guess (only a guess) is that many parents and grandparents do not adequately understand a child's psyche...especially that of a boy. Even if so inclined, who has the time to read all the books and articles on the subject? Who knows which to read? Please understand that I do not consider myself qualified to evaluate the expertise of this book's authors. I have no idea which other books are also worthy of your consideration. But I can recommend this book highly to those who have recurring contact with boys. They include parents and grandparents, of course, but also other relatives, school administrators, classroom teachers, coaches, members of the clergy, adult leaders in organizations for boys (eg Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts), and healthcare providers. The book is well-written. The material is effectively organized. The content is mercifully free of elaborate theories and medical jargon. For those interested in this important subject (ie "protecting the emotional life of boys"), here is a single-volume source of useful information and practical advice.
Rating: 
Summary: Made me think and worry more than most any book I've read
Review: I must say this book really shook me up. As a mother of 2 boys, I was upset to read about how cruel boys can be to each other as teens, and by how closed off they become from their emotions. The book did a wonderful job of pointing out the scary parts of raising boys, but in my opinion anyway did not do enough to answer the question they raise---how can we prevent all this awful stuff from happening? The advice given is what most parents would try to do anyway---keep the lines of communication open, be there but don't be smothering, etc. I would like to know more about how specifically I can help my sons weather childhood and grow into happy adults. After reading this book, I think one could get the impulse the only good way to do this is keep them home at all times away from all the cruelty!
Rating:
Summary: A great book!
Review: I am the mother of 3 boys - when my six year old began Kindergarten this year, he started to act different. I didn't understand what he was feeling. Afterall, arts and crafts in Kindergarten sounded great to me. Why couldn't he sit still for the activity? I desperately searched for some reading material that would help me to understand what he was going through. And I found it in this book. An easy read. A lot of great information for understanding boys and their behaviors and feelings. My son doesn't act different anymore - instead I act differently toward him and it's helped all of us.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I couldn't put this book down until I had finished reading it! It contains great case studies that are helpful in understanding the impact that teasing has on young boys, for example. As a mom, the material also helped me to better understand some things that are considered "normal" for boys and not be so quick to overreact. It covers the development of boys from age 5 through the teenage years. I cannot say enough about this book and I would STRONGLY recommend it to all parents.
Rating: 
Summary: Dan and Mike take a Risk to improve society.
Review: This book suggests there is another opportunity for your son other than to emulate Rambo. Breaking the parent/son "discipline" cycle is now getting increasing recognition (Daniel Petrie "Father Time"; "Stiffed : The Betrayal of the American Man", Susan Faludi; et al) for what it is - a method of behaviour modification that has now passed its use-by date. Although there a passages that contradict each other (see other reviews on this site), Life itself contains contradictions and to expect a book based upon real-life experiences to not contain contradictions may be naive. Reading and identifying with the examples in this book will help parents more understand their children, and also fathers understand their own childhood. Self-Understanding and compassion leads to a richer and more enjoyable life. Based upon this, what's not to recommend?
Rating:
Summary: An informative and insightful book
Review: Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, by Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael Thompson, Ph.D., is a book that captures the emotional struggles of adolescent boys in this day and age. It was fascinating in many regards to learn of the issues that boys deal with throughout the second decade of their lives, and how they deal with them. Raising Cain describes how boys desperately need a "clan" throughout their adolescence to help them grow and mature into emotionally healthy men. The book greatly emphasizes the importance of both a boy's father and mother, why these relationships are so extremely significant, and how parents can and should go about maintaining the strongest possible relationships with their sons. The book also explains boys' tendencies to keep things bottled up inside instead of talking about them, this being due to a lack of emotional vocabulary and the inability to express feelings. Boys, therefore, tend to suffer in silence or release negative feelings through anger or violence. Raising Cain does a great job of explaining how and why such behaviors exist in adolescent boys and how parents, educators, and mentors can help them through these challenging times in their lives. Although the book is very insightful, Raising Cain tends to over-emphasize the differences between the struggles and obstacles of adolescent boys and girls, and at many times, seems to pit them against one another in terms of which gender has it harder. This implicit competition makes the book frustrating to read at times. Overall, though, Raising Cain is a tremendously educational book, both from a professional perspective and a personal perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Very pertinent to how we raise our sons in this society.
Review: Very pertinent to how we raise our sons in our society. A must read by ever parent while their son is growing up. If you like this book, try Go West Old Man by Max Barnet, a true tale about a father/son trip across the country in a pickup truck, discovering each other, including their needs. A clash of generations resolving.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for every parent and teacher.
Review: Kindlon and Thompson have written an insightful study of what's going wrong (and right) with our boys. With middle-school shootings and spouse abuse headlining our newspapers, this is a must-read for every parent and teacher. Besides having academic credentials, the authors have much experience as fathers and as counselors in private practice and in schools. The book is peppered with lively anecdotes to illustrate their theories. Because I had no brothers and therefore not much experience with boy-psychology, this book taught me a great deal about the culture of cruelty practiced by adolescent boys and why boys often brag, misuse girls, drink, and tease. The authors are not mere alarmists, however. They encourage us to provide safe, nurturing homes and classrooms for our boys, to help them understand feelings other than anger, resulting in sensitive, strong, and caring men.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but gender-relations confusion
Review: A book that reveals the "hidden meaning" behind the often perplexing and frustrating behavior of boys. The social and emotional influences that impact the lives of modern boys are thoughtfully reviewed, with one area of exception. The chapter entitled "Romancing the Stone, from heartfelt to heartless relations with girls" resorts to contradictory statements that reflect the larger gender-relations confusion now present in our society. For example, the authors see the teenage boy's struggle with sexuality and intimacy as a struggle with "fears, hopes, and longing." This recognition of deep emotional needs within boys is characteristic of the previous chapters. However, uncharacteristically, the authors developed a case of amnesia as they wrote this chapter. They attribute the fear to a fear of "dependence on the girl." Later, they attribute it to fear of rejection, which (they don't explain how) leads to fantasies of the domination of women. The authors don't identify research that substantiates their claim; thus, I am left to believe that they are presenting their personal belief systems and not valid scientific knowledge. This is substantiated by their description of teenage girls as sometimes "aggressive." They later minimize the aggressiveness of girls by characterizing it as "perceived aggression" (p. 209) and accuse boys of "overpowering girls and women." The authors also take pains to state that girls mature earlier than boys, and are thus more sexually and emotionally mature. If girls are aggressive and also more mature, how do boys overpower them? The book fails to explain other than to provide the stereotypical offering of male "performance anxiety" (p. 209). It then states that when combined with the "culture of cruelty" that boys "denigrate girls and women in order to control their anxiety about them" (p. 210). And then "girls become the enemy." This contradicts the presentation of how boys fantasize about girls day and night. It seems odd to present boys as sexually fantasizing about their enemy. The story changes throughout the chapter regarding boy's level of knowledge of relationships with girls. At first it is a compassionate interpretation of "ignorance" (p. 201). Then the explanation changes to a "casual disregard" (p. 202). Certainly a boy who is ignorant cannot be accused of "casual disregard." This would require a knowledge of the elements of relationship before the offense. The section on date rape is also stereotypical of the political orientation of this chapter. It claims that girls can be "exploited" by less emotionally and physically mature boys. Are the authors stating that boys are more capable than girls are, even though they are less mature? Certainly this would contradict their feminist orientation. Or is the unstated possibility that the maturer girl took advantage of the boy and later regretted doing so? Perhaps in cases where an immature boy and girl are intoxicated (the stereotypical date-rape scenario), both the boy and girl feel badly about the sexual encounter. Unfortunately, this is never considered. The boy's feelings are not discussed other than in condemnatory language. Gone is the compassion of previous chapters that might have identified how a boy feels as a victim of date rape. I find it disappointing that our culture is so focussed on men as perpetrators and females as victims. The statement that "you don't just rape girls" is illustrative. It holds boys wholly responsible for unwanted sexual contact because after all, when a girl gets aroused and takes advantage of a boy, our culture does not consider that to be rape, it is said to be a "rite of passage." There is no scientific evidence to support these claims. This is a philosophical orientation based on gender feminism. It is popular psychobabble and I was sorely disappointed to read this chapter. Perhaps the authors felt compelled to give a nod to the gender feminist influence in our society, but the outcome was a wholesale dismissal of the previous excellent work. As a whole, this is a welcome addition to my personal studies of men and boys. However, the chapter of boy and girl relationships will be a point of illustration in my discussions regarding issues of men and boys. A point that will illustrate how our world is confused and contradictory when it comes to gender relations. Perhaps a better overall treatment of boys with more real-world suggestions for interacting with boys, is "Real Boys", by Pollack.
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