Rating: 
Summary: Humorous yet thoughtful reflections about life
Review: This book was a pleasure to read, enjoyable both for its thoughtful musings about the world we live in and the author's humor. His idiosyncracies (such as his practice of not raking leaves or otherwise disturbing the yard with work) are things I either practice myself or else wish I did. His good sense shines through in the leaves of the book and his often wise observations are not esoteric platitudes but down to earth comments about plain good living. (I have sometimes seen this book stocked in the religious sections of bookstores, but this seems inapt, given that the author doesn't demonstrate much religious leanings in his writings.) The chapters are short and easygoing, allowing this book to be read in one or one hundred sittings.
Rating:
Summary: makes ya smile
Review: i don't know what possessed my to buy this book, but i'm glad that i did. the book was really wonderful. i enjoyed reading it. it made me laugh and lightened my mood. it's a good picker upper type of book. if a person's down in the dumps....give them this book....it may make them smile.....read the book in a sunny place. i've read all his other books and they are as good as this.
Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring "Collection" of Ordinary Things
Review: Robert actually used the eyes of a child to view the same world that many of us are seeing, so, it's different, not because he is seeing a different world, but with a very different, but basic instinctive eyes. That's how the book could be very inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: Warm Fuzzies
Review: All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is a heartwarming, feel good book that touched me on an emotional level. It made me laugh, made me cry, and made me cry from laughing so hard! I think it's because his stories are real life accounts with a witty, humorous twist. I could actually see myself in the exact situations that he wrote about (which made me laugh even harder). I picked the book up and couldn't put it down until I had finished it; reading each story at least twice! Robert Fulghum is a must read...he is truly an inspiration
Rating: 
Summary: Fluff and nuttiness
Review: Fulghum takes many potentially meaningful life experiences and reduces them to accessible, palatable superficiality -- the stuff worthy of Hallmark greeting cards. He needs to get to grade school at least, but college? Out of the question, I'm afraid. Fluff for these nutty times, indeed
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST
Review: Whenever I have a friend who's out of sorts,I give this book to them, for medicinal purposes. Robert Fulghum is the only author that I have reread. When I'm feeling low, his prose never fails to revive me. His simple, but astute, observations on everyday life always touch me. This book is a necessity for anyone's life
Rating:
Summary: A MUST read for fans of the original & all others!
Review: ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
by Robert Fulghum is one of my all-time favorite books . . . it is a
collection of essays that reflect the author's thoughts on life, death
and a whole lot of other subjects in-between.So when I saw the 15th Anniversary Edition of the above, I naturally had to get hold of and then devour it . . . and
am glad I did . . . it's GREAT! It is also quite different . . . or as the subtitle indicates, it is
"reconsidered, revised, and expanded with 25 new essays." I liked all the new entries, but also got a kick out of revisiting
the old ones . . . it was like being with friends I haven't seen before. Fulghum is that kind of author . . . once you read him, you'll
want to get everything else he has written: IT WAS ON FIRE
WHEN I LAY DOWN ON IT, UH-OH and MAYBE (MAYBE
NOT) . . . you won't be disappointed in any of these, nor with
his latest work either. There were several memorable passages in the 15th Edition that
I had not come across before; among them: * "And so then what happened?" An urgent question out of the bedtime darkness, asked by my children,
when they and I were young. Just when I thought I had slam-dunked
a story-ending-just when I was certain the children were safely in the
arms of the sandman--a small, sleepy voice would plead, "So, then
what happened?" And no matter what I replied, the plea went on, "Please,
please, Daddy--tell the rest of the story." In cranky desperation, I would resort to apocalypse: "Suddenly a
comet hit the earth and blew everything to pieces." Silence. "What happened to the pieces?" "It doesn't matter. Everybody died a horrible death, especially
all the little children who were not asleep." I also tried, "The father
sold all the children who would not go to sleep to a passing gypsy
who ground them into sausage meat. The first children to be ground
up were those who would not stop asking questions." Go ahead, shame me. But it worked. Most of the time. On reflection,
I suspect such gory endings were what they really liked most. Perhaps
it was a scheme to see just how far I would go--to see how crazed
their father really was. Now I am dealing with grandchildren who have the same restless
minds. I am wilier now than I used to be. To the inevitable request
for more, I reply, "Only your father knows the rest of the story. Ask
him to finish it when you get home." * Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret
weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty Bomb. And every time a
crisis developed, we would launch one first--before we tried
anything else. It would explode high in the air--explode softly--and
send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down
to earth--boxes of Crayolas. And we shouldn't go cheap either--not little
boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.
With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber
and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little
funny look on their faces and cover the word with imagination instead
of death. A child who touched one wouldn't have his hand blown off. * I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one
wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good
without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God
decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to
all human beings. And so it has been to this day.
Rating: 
Summary: Simple-minded, boring stuff
Review: I remember exactly where I threw this book into the trash. It was in a chapter where Fulghum was wondering where all our "childhood potential" had gone. That is to say, kindergartners (allegedly) all say they can dance AND sing AND paint AND do anything at all. But when you talk with people of college age, you suddenly discover that they have chosen specialties, and are no longer acting as if they had "unlimited potential" in everything. Fulghum, bathetically, weeps over this enormous loss (?) and wonders what can be wrong with the world which so limits our unlimited potential. (Shades of the lunatic Rousseau!) As it happened, I was reading William James at the time, and William James produced an excellent explanation of the development which Fulghum was complaining about. To paraphrase: every man would like to be a millionaire, and a great lover, and a saint, and a famous warrior, and a philanthropist, and a star athlete, and a world-famous gourmet. BUT, once you start looking at things seriously, you obviously have to choose, because these roles cannot all fit together in one human being. The philanthropist would be at war with the millionaire, and the saint would conflict with the warrior, and the gourmet would conflict with the athlete. So we all concentrate on finding our strong points and developing them. People who are musically gifted will study music intensely, while mathematicians will pursue math. As James said, "I myself am a psychologist. I don't mind a bit if you can beat me in Ancient Greek, because I no longer 'carry that line,' as a shopkeeper would say. But, if you say that you are better than me at psychology, my attention is immediately engaged, because my intent is to be the best psychologist in the world." This is the normal pattern of child and adolescent development. That Fulghum could be ignorant of such an obvious thing truly does make one think that he stopped learning in kindergarten. And some people think that education is a life-long process! :-0 This book is poppycock. Not recommended at all.
Rating:
Summary: All I Really Need To Know I Learned From This Book
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone. The basic principle of the book is, everything you need to know about life, and how to live successfully stem from the basics that we all learned in kindergarten. Often, in many books there is a boring spot. Either the reader gets tired of waiting for the characters to interact with each other, or the plot isn't moving along, etc. With All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, this is never the problem. Since each story is very short, if you don't like the characters in a story, it will be over shortly. The stories in the beginning of the book were the most meaningful, while at the end, the stories were incredibly good. In the middle of the book, the stories weren't as good, and the theme of Christmas was in about ten different stories. Since there are only about 60 stories, you can image how this got redundant. Other than these, I could personally relate to the essays and I think that anyone else would be able to also.
Rating:
Summary: Much Better Than Expected
Review: "A part of this -- the part about what I learned in kindergarten -- was passed around the country until it took on a life of its own. One day it was sent home in the knapsack of a child whose mother is a literary agent..." (Robert Fulghum) Thus history was written -- serendipitous indeed. I have read the chain message, which lists these gems, many times from various Internet friends, throughout the years. Many of the phrases are clichés now because of the truth within the words. Finding fragments of our own lives in these pages is easy. Fulghum consolidated his extensive Credo of life into a simpler format, such as: "Remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned -- the biggest word of all -- is LOOK." Look both ways... look into the heart of the matter... look at yourself... look at history... look what happened... look at what you missed.... All of the kindergarten principles are found in the first three pages, and then Fulghum reveals how he applied these ideals throughout his life. One example is his encounters with a neighbor who was a "raker and a shoveler." He picked up the leaves and shoveled away the snow, but with the attitude of you "can't let old Mother Nature get ahead of you," and considered Fulghum to be a lazy neighbor. The leaves pile up, become mulch, and make more earth. The snow melts and feeds the land. Nature has taken care of itself for a long time. I imagined someone going into the woods and everywhere else, daily gathering leaves in a constant frustrating battle, and at season's change shoveling the snow from one place to another. Of course, I would want the leaves raked up and the snow shoveled off the driveway and sidewalk, but my dad, who understood the cycle, put the greens in the garden. Fulghum shows the fallacy of gender encoding through a simple example about cars -- the Y chromosome does not mean a man knows about jumper cables. "Besides, this guy only asked me if I 'had' jumper cables, not if I knew how to 'use' them." He describes an incident where he and the stranded collaborator swaggered around, "being all macho and cool and talking automobile talk." They looked under the hood of the car, and there was no battery. "'Hell,' I said, 'there's your problem right there. Somebody stole your battery.'" In these marvelous vignettes, Fulghum shows a simpler way to look at those things we confront in life. The book was first published in 1986, and it is still being published. Very few books survive this long -- only the good ones do. Five stars. Victoria Tarrani
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