Rating: 
Summary: Educational for All Parents
Review: Anna Salter does a masterful job of drawing attention to the fact that we live in an increasingly dangerous world amongst sexual predators who are invisible right before our eyes. These predators are able to successfully gratify their pathological appetites because not only are they experts at deception but also because they take advantage of our naivete and willingness to believe that friendly, pleasant-looking adults are trustworthy and have only good intentions around our children.Salter points out that sexual assaults occur much more frequently than once thought. In addition, offenders are rarely caught because we are vulnerable to the distorted belief that we know who predators are, what they look like, and how they act. The majority of the book is devoted to correcting those distortions. It provides insights into how to identify child molesters and rapists and how sadists and psychopaths operate. After describing the fine intricacies of deception and providing some intriguing observations on what to look for when we believe a person is trying to deceive us, Salter concludes that lies are easy to miss. She admits to reservations about developing the ability to detect deception frequently enough to make a difference. Instead she proposes the most effective means of protection is to "deflect" sex offenders through increased awareness of the environment and more involvement in our children's lives. The more parents and adults educate themselves about those who abuse our children, the safer our society will become. The only glaring omission in Salter's work however, is the use of the Internet as a means to prey upon the young. A volume devoted to developing safeguards employing the same acumen and professional insights as used in this HIGHLY RECOMMENDED work would be a welcome addition to the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Very informative
Review: As a founder of a corporation dedicated to protecting children from predators and the like, I found this book very helpful. The author is very likeable, and has done exactly what I wanted to do. I think this is a book that parents should read for the protection of not only their children, but themselves as well. Again, although the topic is not exactly humorous, the author's thoughts are shared at the perfect time that I would be thinking the same things!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: As a police officer who's duties include juvenile, DARE, and School Resource Officer, I found this book to be right on target. Many times in my career you try to explain to parents what they need to to, be aware of, and watch out for. I feel this is a must read for parents and professionals alike.
Rating:
Summary: A guide to personal safety
Review: As a woman's self-defense instructor, I found Dr. Salter's book very compeling. It's part of my reading list I recommend to my seminar students. Self-defense is more that throwing punches and kicks. It's also about having the knowledge to perceive certain behavoirs and knowing how to deal with them. Her book dispels many myths that we have all taken for truths. It gives you guidance tools to help you make yourself and your children safer. I found this book disturbing in parts, but none the less, a must read for parents and single moms/women.
Rating:
Summary: The faint of heart should read this
Review: As an adult survivor of childhood sexual molest, I find myself continually shocked to find how few people think of this as a sinister national epidemic. If more people read this book, I'm confident the world would be a safer place for our children. I love this book for a lot of reasons:
It focuses on the predators. There are a great many books that help victims to recover after the fact, but comparatively zilch on how to PREVENT the crimes to begin with, or on how to define the enemy. It dispelled my own personal long-held belief that predators were originally victims, or that they were lost souls of some sort. The author was able to get the predators to open up using the promise of anonymity, and startling, unapologetic things came out.
It showed me how we mustn't listen to our instincts since they are essentially unreliable, a method I relied upon heavily before reading this book.
It documented how difficult it is to spot pedophiles, and therefore urged an attitude of vigilance and awareness in the presence of everyone. Predators do not like a challenge, and a wary attitude goes a long way toward prevention. The book shows how "nice" men aren't necessarily good men. There were a couple of flaws:
The author did not reference what sort of punishment/treatment/consequences should be advocated, although she does touch on the fact that therapy seems to be entirely unhelpful. She seems to believe that execution isn't viable, nor does she think incarceration has any effect on future crimes with the predator except that they are more skilled, having learned their lesson. This didn't seem to leave any other clear alternative, aside from life incarceration (a standard I endorse), but she does not say this.
I also would have liked more reference to how we can change the legal system that, on average, incarcerates predators for a maximum of 4 years, usually far less.
It excuses mothers of victims. She makes the point that often a mother is blamed in a situation of child incest, even more so than the predator. While I do not think this is fair, in my personal experience and those of the vast majority of my friends who are survivors of sexual abuse the mother knew or was told and did nothing, and therefore of course they bear a heavy dose of responsibility. Overall, highly recommended, even for those who are already well-versed on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Facing Reality: Removing the Rose-Colored Glasses
Review: Gavin de Becker articulates the purpose of this book very well in the summation of his foreword: "Predators gives parents and educators the best kind of defense against sexual offenders: wisdom". It only serves its purpose if the readers take its contents to heart. It was written to create a more conscientious audience. For the general population to simply know more about the issues raised within is a step in the right direction. This book provides knowledge and insight into many groups, including rapists, sadists, pedophiles and psychopaths. She also touches upon concepts like trauma and the techniques predators use to deceive and authorities use to detect deception. Salter has included excerpts from interviews with victims, assailants, inmates, and predators of all walks of life so that readers can get "insight and advice [...] from the `horse's mouth'"
Salter stressed generally becoming more knowledgeable about the realities of life and our surroundings. She cited researcher Melvin Lerner's book The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion whose work supported her idea that as a society, we think too highly of the world in which we live. She challenges us to remove the rose-colored glasses and look at our societies, cultures, and lives for what they are so that we can begin to deal with some of their faults.
This book is mostly a collection of pieces of information, statements and truths that many of us, on a regular basis, refuse to face. "One in three girls and one in six boys will have sexual contact with an adult."
Most people find it easier to look away or even deny that it exists, but Salter sheds light on what many others attempt to bury. The factual evidence is very difficult to dispute. Salter very effectively presents her points through facts and figures, opinions and examinations. She cites many books, colleagues and studies in an effort to provide readers with the information needed to make informed decisions about the types of people that they allow access to their lives, their homes, and their children. The extent of her research is evident when consulting her 14-page bibliography.
Salter achieves her purpose in this book. She presents her findings creating a slew of facts for opponents to try to challenge. While she does not necessarily make it easier to identify predators, Salter makes us more sensitive to the facts, so that we can address our realities on our own terms. An excerpt from her introduction:
This is not a book with complete and comfortable answers. It will not finish with a checklist for identifying a sex offender.... But if I do my job right, reading this book will make it harder for sex offenders to get access to you or your children. So that there is no confusion later, Salter attempts to define the problem/s in the first chapter. This is to no avail, because when reading back through the chapter, I find no thesis, only tear-jerking testimonials. Through the body of the book she offers elucidation for readers previously unexposed to the ranks of psychopaths and pedophiles, and in her summation she offers a course of action: suspect any and all.
This book may be difficult for some of the readers in its target audience. Because her research was so extensive, many parts of the book employ very technical language that would prove more useful to her colleagues than it would be to someone outside of the field of psychology. Though she makes a conscious attempt to use laymen's terms in the explanations of difficult topics, her efforts may be in vain; in any case they were almost wasted on me.
Rating:
Summary: Facing Reality: Removing the Rose-Colored Glasses
Review: Gavin de Becker articulates the purpose of this book very well in the summation of his foreword: "Predators gives parents and educators the best kind of defense against sexual offenders: wisdom". It only serves its purpose if the readers take its contents to heart. It was written to create a more conscientious audience. For the general population to simply know more about the issues raised within is a step in the right direction. This book provides knowledge and insight into many groups, including rapists, sadists, pedophiles and psychopaths. She also touches upon concepts like trauma and the techniques predators use to deceive and authorities use to detect deception. Salter has included excerpts from interviews with victims, assailants, inmates, and predators of all walks of life so that readers can get "insight and advice [...] from the 'horse's mouth'"
Salter stressed generally becoming more knowledgeable about the realities of life and our surroundings. She cited researcher Melvin Lerner's book The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion whose work supported her idea that as a society, we think too highly of the world in which we live. She challenges us to remove the rose-colored glasses and look at our societies, cultures, and lives for what they are so that we can begin to deal with some of their faults.
This book is mostly a collection of pieces of information, statements and truths that many of us, on a regular basis, refuse to face. "One in three girls and one in six boys will have sexual contact with an adult."
Most people find it easier to look away or even deny that it exists, but Salter sheds light on what many others attempt to bury. The factual evidence is very difficult to dispute. Salter very effectively presents her points through facts and figures, opinions and examinations. She cites many books, colleagues and studies in an effort to provide readers with the information needed to make informed decisions about the types of people that they allow access to their lives, their homes, and their children. The extent of her research is evident when consulting her 14-page bibliography.
Salter achieves her purpose in this book. She presents her findings creating a slew of facts for opponents to try to challenge. While she does not necessarily make it easier to identify predators, Salter makes us more sensitive to the facts, so that we can address our realities on our own terms. An excerpt from her introduction:
This is not a book with complete and comfortable answers. It will not finish with a checklist for identifying a sex offender.... But if I do my job right, reading this book will make it harder for sex offenders to get access to you or your children. So that there is no confusion later, Salter attempts to define the problem/s in the first chapter. This is to no avail, because when reading back through the chapter, I find no thesis, only tear-jerking testimonials. Through the body of the book she offers elucidation for readers previously unexposed to the ranks of psychopaths and pedophiles, and in her summation she offers a course of action: suspect any and all.
This book may be difficult for some of the readers in its target audience. Because her research was so extensive, many parts of the book employ very technical language that would prove more useful to her colleagues than it would be to someone outside of the field of psychology. Though she makes a conscious attempt to use laymen's terms in the explanations of difficult topics, her efforts may be in vain; in any case they were almost wasted on me.
Rating:
Summary: Knowing what you need to know to protect your kids
Review: Having read books by Gavin de Becker I saw that he'd written the forward to this and knew this would be a great book. There is so much information in this about how predators work and how we cannot always recognize them.
This book has made me more aware of the people involved in my children's lives. I don't take anything at face value anymore. This is a must read for anyone with children or who works with children.
I learned from Anna's book that these predators are everywhere and can get away with what they do because we want to believe there is good in everyone and nothing bad will happen to us. However, bad things do happen and if I can minimize those bad things happening to my children then I've done my job.
As I'm sitting here writing this review I'm sipping a delicious beverage that cannot stop drinking. Absolutely fabulous stuff! Made from roasted soya that you brew like coffee. My doctor said my cholesterol dropped 30 points thanks to this. Look for it online at www.s oycoffee.com. As for the book, it's pure pleasure reading.
Very easy read and well written. The only chapter I couldn't read was the chapter entitled Sadists and Anna says at the beginning of this chapter that you might want to skip it because of the violence that she talks about.
Rating:
Summary: Relevant for parents, but disturbing.
Review: I disagree with the editorial review which opined that this "subject matter is likely to appeal more to police or psychology professionals." I am a parent, and not a police officer or psychologist, and I sat down with this book and read it nonstop because it was so compelling. I think the author does a great job of alerting readers to the danger we face from the human predators around us. She works with the Wisconsin Dept of Corrections and in the book has shared dialogue from interviews with a number of unsavory convicted criminals. Yet the truth is so disturbing that it is easier to blindly believe in an inner good in everyone. The book contains plenty of insight into the minds of child molesters, and a lengthy focus on deception and lying. There's an overview of how child molesters ingratiate themselves with trusting families in order to get at their victims. And how child rapists are given the freedom to commit their crime again and again when children aren't believed. "Niceness" is their masquerade, in the sense that people doubt that someone so "nice" could be doing something so horrible. The book also discusses victim-blaming, and why the victims of rape cope by thinking, "If only I hadn't done THIS, If only I hadn't been wearing THAT." And it talks about the wrongness of family therapy as a response to incest, because the perpetrator gets to hide behind the "dysfunctional family" label. There's a lot more in this well-written book, which I find very relevant to people who want to protect themselves and their own children. I recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy
Review: I had read this book some time ago, but due to the recent events involving the Florida girl I decided to come back here and write this review. This book is an excellent source of information. I wish that everyone, everywhere would read this to gain insight into what is going on around us. We have got to find a way to stop the molestations,rapes,abuse and deaths from happening to our children. As a society we need to read about what is happening to our children. Have a safe guard for the future. I also want two recommend to other books dealing with sexual abuse-Beauty For Ashes by Joyce Meyer and Nightmares Echo by Katlyn Stewart and then for child abuse-A Child Called It by David Pelzer.
So very angry!!
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