It Takes A Village

Rating:
Summary: Decent General Information on Wide Variety of Issues
Review: I review this trying to ignore that it is partisan. I found the personal stories about raising a daughter did not get overly emotional but were still endearing. Most of the book wrote intelligently and cursorily over a variety of issues such as child care, early education programs, and the modern family condition. This book did not try to teach me anything new, but rather synthesize many things I already knew. That made it light reading. I'm not sure who the audience would be if I ignore the partisan aspects. Perhaps by ignoring the politics I have just removed the purpose of this book?

Rating:
Summary: Read between the lines
Review: Hillary Clinton's political manifesto. It sings the praises of Socialism and multiculturalism.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother.....
Review: Go back up to the Amazon search box, type in "Ayn Rand", and read something worthwhile. Don't waste your time with this or any other socialist nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: *plonk*
Review: It's always good to take a gander at the other side of the political spectrum, do a little "opposition research." For those of you in the "anti-Hillary" camp, I would suggest you start reading all you can about Ms. Rodham, who will very likely be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008. You can't defeat an opponent until you get inside his/her head, and IT TAKES A VILLAGE is Hillary's vivid socialist manifesto.

Yes, as Ms. Rodham contends, 75 years ago our towns and/or neighborhoods consisted primarily of extended families. Uncle Jake and his brood lived across the street, Cousin Maple had the pink bungalow on the corner, and Grandma and Grandpa lived upstairs. Everyone took an interest in and kept up with everyone else--including the kids. But even back in those days, the ultimate responsibility for a child's well being and upbringing rested exclusively with the parents. Mom and Dad called the shots, no matter what Grandma or Uncle Jake or Cousin Maple thought. Fast forward to today, and Hillary's argument that we must somehow replace the extended family of yesteryear with social workers, bureaucrats, and other outsiders--augmented by socialized health care and education--and the village she advocates is frighteningly Orwellian.

Not that village. Not with my kids.

Ms. Rodham's benign prose fails to mask social activism that has systematically derailed, destabilized, and destroyed the core human values that once were transcendent in our culture... She also has a disquieting affinity with the word, "invest (i.e., "tax")." We must "invest" in our schools, "invest" in our day care centers, "invest" in child health care, "invest" in a myriad of social programs, "invest" to end poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, domestic violence, and every other societal malady one can think of. Never mind the fact that the "investee" perhaps should take some responsibility to alleviate his or her need for "investment dollars"; Ms. Rodham only advocates her view of a village to put a happy face on any situation.

Wonderfully Utopian, but where is the "investment" going to come from?

IT TAKES A VILLAGE gives us a front row view--up close and personal--of Hillary Rodham Clinton's socialist beliefs and activist agenda. Stephen King doesn't write stuff this scary. On the positive side, I give two stars for the ghostwriter.
--D. Mikels

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Amazing!
Review: The book gives lip service at the very begining as to how a child's parents are the obvious primary care givers and providers for a child, but the rest of the book is in direct contradiction with this common sense view. In short, a good deal of Hillary's "village" is none other than the federal government and its myriad of programs. There isn't a government program she's come across that she doesn't like. Well, I suppose that Mrs. Clinton, as member of a wonderfully successful nuclear family, would be just the right person to be the architect for the ways in which the federal government can rear its big ugly head into the parent-child relationship.

Rating:
Summary: Boo!!! Ordinary Village people have common sense
Review: This book is written by someone other than hillary clinton. How would she ever know all that is written in this book. She can't remember important issues in her life besides telling us what is right and wrong. Sorry hillary, my golden retriever could have written a better book.

Rating:
Summary: Collectivism and Children
Review: I found this book disturbing! The book reads well, and feels good, but this is a book about collectivism. It is very very subtle, but lets face it, Hillary has long been an advocate of socialism. These are the roots of a movement towards collective society, like Marxism. In order to implement what she advocates, the government will have to have complete control.

Rating:
Summary: Help The Children
Review: The bestselling book by HIlary Rodham Clinton presents the idea that children deserve the best that soeciety can give and only as a society can we give it to them.

First Mrs. Clinton argues that children are affected by all of society directly and indirectly and that affects their well being. "All of us...are responsible for deciding whether our children are raised in a nation that doesn't just espouse family values but values families and children" (7). Children are the product of society and everything the adult world does affects children. Any person, no matter how old, affects the rest of the world.

Secondly, Mrs. Clinton addresses the inadequacy of the American childcare and education system. America simply does not invest enough into its children. She compares out situation with France, where every child has good public childcare and education available to them. When the French are asked about their system they reply "How can you not invest in children and expect to have a healthy country?" (223). Also, our education standards are too low. during the Cold War the president asked all students to study more math and science and they did and test scores improved, because the goals were higher.

Mrs. Clinton also confronts the lack of health care that children are getting. MAny American children do not have any health care. How can our society continue to thrive when the children are sick and dieing from curable diseases? Due to these problems, the emergency rooms are flooded with the cases of people who have preventable problems. Preventable by vacination and other medical care.

Inconclusion, Mrs. Clinton makes valid points and artfully argues her assumptions. This book is very readable and I strongly suggest that you do.

Rating:
Summary: Umm...who wrote this dribble?
Review: I think Gregg Easterbrook, another Amazon.com-featured author, says it best: "In her corner, Hillary will surely claim...to have written "It Takes a Village," whose actual author was a ghost named Barbara Feinman. How do we know this? Because at one point Simon & Schuster, the publisher, accidentally sent out a press release announcing Feinman as actual author. Hillary threw a fit and insisted the finished book make no acknowledgment of the existence of Feinman, who later had to threaten litigation just to get paid. That Hillary's actions in this matter were small, self-important, vain, selfish, egotistical, dishonest and abusive of her power somehow failed to register. Though surely Hollywood types who funded her Senate run were pleased to learn that Hillary is small, self-important, vain, selfish, egotistical, dishonest and abuses her power. "She's one of us!" they must have exclaimed in Bel Air.

Today, Hillary's official United States Senate biography states, "In 1997, she wrote the best-selling book 'It Takes a Village.' " This is an outright lie. Wouldn't it be a nice gesture if official Senate biographies did not contain lies? What does it say about a United States senator that she blithely lies for her own ego gratification? At least Trent Lott admits how despicable he is."

Rating:
Summary: Only useful idiots will buy this
Review: Clinton should scare all freedom loving Americans with this ghostwritten [garbage]. This is pure communism unmasked. She subtly suggests the state would do a better job raising our children than we could. Sounds a little Marxist to me. Take a close look at Chelsea. She is obviously Web Hubbell's child. Would Ms. Clinton have us believe we should have each other's love children and then raise them collectively? As Stalin liked to say, "only useful idiots will buy this".