Raisin' Brains: Surviving My Smart Family

Rating:
Summary: Don't read Rainin' Brains in a quiet place...
Review: ... Because you're going to laugh out loud! Issacson offers a hilarious look at life in a gifted family, with five kids, each as different yet challanging as the one before. From cleaning the kitchen to playing with their food, these kids manage to find fun whatever they do.

My husband accused me of "having entirely too much fun" while reading this book. And he's right - it's great fun! But don't let the kids read it... they might get even more "good" ideas of tricks to play on you!

Rating:
Summary: Don't read Rainin' Brains in a quiet place...
Review: ... Because you're going to laugh out loud! Issacson offers a hilarious look at life in a gifted family, with five kids, each as different yet challanging as the one before. From cleaning the kitchen to playing with their food, these kids manage to find fun whatever they do.

My husband accused me of "having entirely too much fun" while reading this book. And he's right - it's great fun! But don't let the kids read it... they might get even more "good" ideas of tricks to play on you!

Rating:
Summary: A Delightful Read!
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Once you pick it up, you'll find it difficult to put down. This book is helpful and humorous at the same time. It raises the awareness of the dilemas that gifted children (and their parents) often face in school and at home, in an engaging way. Ms. Isaacson has the uncanny ability to make any parent reflect on the uniqueness of their own children. Reading this book gave me a greater appreciation for my own children. Parents and teachers alike, would benefit from reading this laugh-out-loud book.

Rating:
Summary: you'll laugh out loud
Review: I think the person who wrote the negative review below (see Adderall)has no sense of humor. This book is hilarious. The family it describes is hilarious. These are bright,creative, interesting people. Not every family is like this, but this family is authentic. Those of us who work with gifted kids know families like this. We appreciate bright, creative kids who can think in unique ways. Creativity means thinking outside the box; and we're going to need lots of creative thinkers like the ones in this family to solve the world's problems.

Rating:
Summary: Lighthearted reflections on family life in general
Review: Raisin' Brains: Surviving My Smart Family by Karen L. J. Isaacson is a lighthearted and engaging collection of anecdotal stories about a mother surrounded by unusually intelligent relatives and children. Karen's efforts to keep up with everything from a son who starts reading in infancy, to a grandmother who enjoys singing lullabies about worms, makes for whimsical, lighthearted reflections on family life in general, and the parenting of gifted children in particular. Raisin' Brains is delightful and highly recommended reading -- especially for anyone who has ever had the responsibility and experience of raising kids who were smarter than they were!

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Summary: New test for giftedness!
Review: Thanks to Karen Isaacson, we won't need standardized tests to see if children, or their entire families, belong in a gifted program. All we have to do is have them read this book, and wait. If, within minutes, the parent is on the floor hysterically laughing, "I'm not the only one! I'm not the only one!".. her kid gets in the program. As I read this thoroughly enjoyable book I kept wondering how she managed to hide the surveillance equipment she must have installed in my house while MY kids were growing up. Her relaxed, delightful point of view is a gem in this over stressed,what-if-my-kid-isn't-president, panic stricken world of education and parenting. Run, don't walk, to buy this book. Even before you wipe the two pounds of peanut butter off the carpet the kids used in their anti-friction experiment.Especially before you find out which kid did it this time.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: This book was not only hilarious, but gave me a greater appreciation for my own smart yet nutty family. The authors descriptive words puts you right into her world of gifted characters and lets you laugh right along with her.

Rating:
Summary: Uneducated not even a day of collage." EXPERT???"
Review: What I have seen decribed in this book falls more under Obsesive Compulsive Disorder and ADHD. I would not be suprised if most of her siblings are on some sort of medication for depression or mood swings. In my opinion it is a good book for reseach into the lifes of people dealing with and raised by the emotionaly unstable. Where was the father?