Rating: 
Summary: Between Scientific American and Dr. Spock ...
Review: ... there's a distinct need for a book between the "how-to" manuals like Dr. Spock and the "hard science" works in Scientific American and scholarly journals.
This book by serious scientists who are also devoted and observant parents hits the sweet spot!
If you are looking for yet another book of opinions on how to raise kids, keep looking. This book describes scientifically repeatable findings, using techniques some of which you can replicate (...you might not have access to an MRI device, but you can play with your own child's concept of "gone" ...)
50 pages of notes for people who want to dig deeper into the research! 15 pages of index for people in a hurry! Amusing anecdotes to lift the tedium of careful analysis.
This is a book for any thoughtful and curious parent. It is NOT a "how-to" ... more of a "why it works".
Rating: 
Summary: Hooray! A book on child development that's not annoying!
Review: An intelligent book on how babies learn. There are so many books on the topic out there. But so many of them are written in that irritating "case study" style (e.g., Sophie, a perky 18 month old liked to do X. . .") This book, on the other hand, gets to the point, is written at an adult reading level, and is generally very interesting. I enjoyed reading it, and found the style very refreshing. Further, after reading it, I think I have a better sense of what is going on inside the head of my 9-month old son, and I've been able to apply this information in games and other ways that have been fun for both of us.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Intro to Baby's Developmental Psychology
Review: As the father of a nine month old boy, I have been enthralled with this book. It is not a "how to" book on helping your child learn, but rather is a readable introduction to the current state of the study of cognitive development of babies. If you don't believe that it is possible to know what a baby is thinking, you will be fascinated at the clever experiments that have been constructed to tease out information from a baby's brain. It is surprising who much we can find out about how babies' brains work, and how much that can teach us about the adult human brain.The tone of the book is chatty, but the content is substantial. The authors discuss the philosophers as well as the scientists who are working in this area. I don't suppose that the average new parent is interested in wading into Chomsky, Ryle or Descartes, but this book actually makes it interesting and compelling. The book is broken down into the acquisition of particular mental skills. The authors thesis is that babies learn using, more or less, the scientific method, forming hypotheses and then testing them emperically. (The title of the book is a clever word play, referring to this theory, while simultaneously demonstrating what adult scientists are learning from their empirical studies.) While this may seem pretensious, the authors actually make a pretty good case for this theory. The acquisition of language deviates somewhat from this general theoretical method, but the authors have some fascinating experimental data to illustrate the way babies actually learn language. In short, this book is highly recommended, not just to new parents, but also to anyone interested in childhood cognitive development or what can be known about the workings of the human brain.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Hugely disappointing book that provides little that is fresh, insightful or frankly interesting. I bought this with such high expectations, but there is nothing here an observant parent wouldn't already know.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and lacking one thing
Review: I am a Montessori teacher. I loved the book because it uses today's technology and research techniques to validate the work done by Dr. Maria Montessori ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. The only problem with this book is that the authors never mention Dr. Montessori. It's a good read though it's too bad the authors didn't observe Montessori classes. I recommend this book for teachers and especially parents.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and lacking one thing
Review: I am a Montessori teacher. I loved the book because it uses today's technology and research techniques to validate the work done by Dr. Maria Montessori ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. The only problem with this book is that the authors never mention Dr. Montessori. It's a good read though it's too bad the authors didn't observe Montessori classes. I recommend this book for teachers and especially parents.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting topic, but suffers from poor organization.
Review: I bought this book because, having recently become a father, I wanted to get a better idea of what my baby thinks about and feels from people who make a living studying just that. I also wanted to know how scientists organize and practice the study of infant development; how do you observe an infant's actions and draw information about them based on what they do? (or don't do.) While The Scientist In The Crib is full of a lot of interesting anecdotes, and I certainly wouldn't question the authors' credibility, it is disappointingly organized around very general concepts as opposed to chronology, so that the thread of actual development is difficult to follow from one section to the next. This book really seems more like a series of articles, some more and some less interesting. The chapters examine what children learn about people [chapter 2], things [chapter 3], and then language [chapter 4], and then what scientists have learned about children's minds [chapter 5] and then what scientists have learned about children's brains [chapter 6](the distinction between minds and brains is probably much more meaningful if you're working in the field). There are two different sections entitled 'what newborns know.' I found myself skipping around looking for information relevant to my son and the age that he is now. I suppose if I was not so personally invested in these questions I could examine things in the lofty and generalized manner of this book, but, really, parenting is more a practical than a philosophical pursuit, and a chronological approach would have made the information (and there is a lot) much more accessible and interesting for parents.
Rating: 
Summary: A Big Disappointment -- a reader and soon to be mom
Review: I bought this book with high hopes and couldn't wait to receive it. However, upon receiving it, I was really disappointed. I found this book to be too dry and technical--i.e., I don't need to know about specific chemicals in the brain... It reads like a research paper, not a practical guide. Needless to say, it was not a pleasure to read--maybe other "scientists" will enjoy reading it, but it's not really geared to the everyday parent (and I have a Master's Degree, so it's not that it was over my head). My advice: If you're looking for practical, everyday information to apply to real life, skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I bought this with the hope of reading an easy-to-approach book containing the current science on baby development. What I got instead was a book containing a little science and a lot of breathless commentary on how amazing babies, science, and scientists are.
If you're a thinking religious person that believes science is a useful tool that does not have all the answers you probably will not enjoy this book. The authors have already come to all the conclusions for you and God has been deliberately scrubbed out (literally--they quote part of the famous Wordsworth poem "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" at the heading of the last chapter, but leave off the final and most significant line, "From God who is our Home.").
On the other hand, if you belong to the "science is man's best hope" school of thought then you may enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but repetitive
Review: I found this book to be interesting to read during my son's first year of life. I kept reading things and saying, "Hey, he does that same thing!" The authors' cutsie attempts at humor grew tiresome after the first quarter of the book and by the end I felt it was just saying the same thing over and over.
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