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Summary: Francesca Dietrich is Dead! Kessa Lives!
Review: Fifteen year-old Francesca Dietrich has been the perfect daughter, student, and maintainer of those around her. She is also an aspiring ballerina. When Madame, her dance instructer, tells her that at 5'4'', 98 pounds is not yet good enough, it is just one more thing wrong with her: a weak mother, domineering father, absent older brother, rebellious older sister, and now she is drowning in a sea of fat. Thus Francesca takes matters into her own hands and resolves to starve herself thinner than any model could be and arrange life around her so that it is under her complete control as a person wrapped in the thin veils of her own life; she calls this person Kessa.Her parents begin to worry as their daughter refuses to eat, as she develops special rituals and routines around neatness, food, and personal hygiene, yet what can they do when their obedient child ignores their orders to eat? What is wrong with her? The enigmatic anorexia nervosa seems to be the unfortunate answer. After a psychiatrist fails to be of help and at a mere 77 pounds, Kessa's doctor sends her to Sandy Sherman, a psychologist who specializes in authorative-nurturant therapy, involving mutual trust between therapist and patient, as well as a loving, yet firm authority in which the patient entrusts their life in the therapist's strong hands. Sadly, at 72 pounds, Kessa must be admitted to the hospital, but Sherman is determined to stay on the case. Yet Kessa is so entrenched in her illness that when her weight plummets to 63 and a half pounds and she nearly dies of circulatory collapse, she must be put on hyperalimentation (a form of intravenous nourishment in which nutrition is pumped directly into the vena cava.) Gradually, though, under Sherman's trusting yet forceful tutelage, and with the input of a spunky working class black roommate and repulsive mirror-image of another experienced anorexic, Kessa begins to understand the dynamics of fear and perfection and control within herself and her family which led to her illness. She realizes that her parents' conflicts with her older sister, and omnipresent praise of her older brother left her feeling ignored, and that her mother's passivity taught her that a woman's place was to be silent and always nurturing, causing her to dislike her femininity. Her father must overcome his controlling, insensitive tendencies and develop a kindness and unconditional love for his children, and the family realize that obsessive compulsions are borne out of more than just a crazy person. This book deserves great admiration for being one of the first to expose anorexia nervosa and really elucidate its causes. I think the author, as a leading authority on eating disorders, can really empathize with his patients and tries to show a more sympathetic side to this frustrating illness. However, there is an irritatingly patronizing hue to the book as Kessa relies on Sandy Sherman for every validation as a bent and weakened teenage girl. You will find yourself wishing that she was a stronger character and that the nurturing bond could have been depicted with more equality between therapist and patient. There is also the unrealistic portrayal of Kessa as the "perfect anorexic". I think the author should have given more of an explanation for Kessa's fear of losing control with food by perhaps giving her diet some "flaws" in which she binge-eats or consumes more than she wanted to giving a reason for fear. Kessa needs to be more of a person and less of a model. The novel is also mediocre in writing style. There is something cliche and unimaginative about Levenkron's writing and characters, although the book is filled with excellent detail. The Best Little Girl In The World is a positive debut on the subject of eating disorders, but I believe that the subject as well as the characters need to be expanded and improved.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst little E.D. book in the world
Review: This guy is the biggest quack ever to become an "authority" on eating disorders. He oversaw production of the TV movie based on this novel, and didn't seem to mind that the actress who played the title role dieted to below 90 pounds for the part. When he treated Karen Carpenter, she walked every day to his office in New York weighing 77 pounds, taking 90 laxatives a day, and THIS GUY DIDN'T PUT HER IN THE HOSPITAL UNTIL THE DAMAGE WAS DONE. Under his care, she was given emergency hyperalimentation, gained 30 pounds in a frighteningly short amount of time and died soon after that from heart failure. And now, this Levenkron guy goes on shows like "Hard Copy" and "ET" to do interviews about his "star client." What a (...)....and what a shame that Karen Carpenter didn't get treatment from a therapist who knew what they were doing. Avoid this and other books by Steven Levenkron. They are not helpful or enlightening, and if you have and eating disorder, reading them will only make things worse (I know from experience).
Rating: 
Summary: interesting fact
Review: i just learded that the author of this book was karen carpenter's psycotherapist. i love the carpenters, i want to read this book....
Rating:
Summary: more info
Review: i have not read this book yet, however i just recently discovered that the auther of this book, was karen carpenter's psycotherapist. that it itself would want me to read this book.
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Summary: Im lgad im not anerexic
Review: I loved this book. We have it on my school's summer reading list and i did not read it last year. However a lot of my friends did and they said it was fabulous. This, of course, meant i had to read it. Before all the copies were bought at my school's book fair i got one. Everyone loves it. When i first started reading it i did not really connect with kessa. But then when i relized that we had some of teh same qualities i connected. I cannot believe how much strain society puts on girl, and this book really showed me. I found myself checking up on myself. I would make sure I wasnt gettign to skinny, or not eating. I would check my friends too (we have had some problems at my school). I used to think that being anerexic was not that big a deal, but then i saw what happens. I saw how easily you could die, and the hair on your body (ew). This book opened my eyes a lot. I also could NOT put it down. Instead of studing i would read this book. It was that good, and i would recomend it to anyone!
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Summary: Please- don't make this book stand out
Review: I purchased this book withone hing in mind-Learn how to become an anorexic. Thanks to all you other Handbook to hell people, that's why I purchased it. If you're gonna do something like that do it discreetly. I think its a good book, but its not a handbook to anorexia and it shouldn't be used as one. Thanks to all you HTH people it is. well, all you people, you people who urge caution in reading this book are doing is saying: Hey! You know what this book is? Its a handbook to anorexia! Isn't that great? You can learn how to be an anorexic too! Isn't that great? I also want to say that Myrna was entirely nessescery- she made Kessa see how disgusting she was. also I have a theory on how Kessa could have been saved. madame coulda seen what was going on earlish and told KESSa to stop, I betcha she woulda stopped.
Rating:
Summary: The Best I've Read
Review: This is one of THE BEST books I've ever read. I am interesting in reading about anorexia though I do not suffer from it. (Read Second Star to the Right if you like this book.) The things Kessa thinks about are sometimes a little odd but you get used to them. It shows Kessa becoming an anorexic and most of all, her recovery. A lot of it takes place in a hospital while she is helped by her therepist, Dr. Sherman and her friendships there also. I in a way related to Kessa since I, like her, am an obsessive compulsive. That helped in her becoming an anorexic. I just had to do a book report and I did it on this. Its a great book and I would definitly recommend it for anyone. Young (not too young) or old. Its overall a great book. I also think anyone suffering or who knows someone suffering from anorexia should read this book. It explains alot. It goes into the person and tells about them, not just the disease.
Rating:
Summary: Handbook to Hell
Review: I urge caution in reading this book. While it offers a glimpse into the eating disordered mind, the book reads like a handbook to anorexia. I know I used it as one, and abused it as a source of inspiration to lose weight in order continue down a dangerous pathway. I definitely wouldn't recommend it as reading material for anyone (particularly pre/teenage girls). I wouldn't even recommend it to parents/loved ones of those struggling with eating disorders because the book's tone leave's little room for the hope that is necessary in order to recover from an eating disorder.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Little Girl in the World
Review: I gave this book four stars because I thought that it was a really good book because it related to teenage girls. This book is about a girl who has Anorexia Nervosa, otherwise called Anorexia. Her dance teachers suggested losing a couple of pounds. She looked up to her dance instructor very much and she wanted to please her so she started losing the weight. When she became very skinny she believed that she was not skinny enough. Her parents weren't worried at first because she would eat some of her dinner, although they did notice some strange habits she had begun. They thought nothing about this though because Kessa (was what she liked to call herself) had always been the child in the family who didn't create any problems. Their older daughter Susanna was the one who was always fighting with their father and her older brother always got attention because he was "perfect". She had started calling her Kessa because she thought that it gave her power. It was her new name and she thought of herself as a new-improved person, who would lose weight and not take anything from anyone. Kessa had always thought that people did not want to be friends with her, and she thought that the girls were always laughing at her behind her back. Not only did she not know that if she kept losing weight she could die, but also she wouldn't talk to anyone about her problems because she couldn't trust anyone, or so she thought.
Rating:
Summary: A good insight to a devastating disorder
Review: Personally, I loved the book. I too have struggled with anorexia and bulimia, and I found the book to be quite helpful. Although I think it could've portrayed more emotion and a better look at Kessa herself and not the psychologist so much, I think the book taught a lot about the pressures of being "thin." I do however agree with the fact that you don't just all of a sudden develop anorexia or bulimia. You don't just wake up one day and say "Oh, I think I'll starve myself today!" I doesn't work that way. I think that the even though the psychologist may not have had any insight into the disorder itself as far as personal experience goes, he did a good job with Kessa as far as relating to her goes. He showed great compassion and I think that any psychologist dealing with ED patients should show compassion and love. I think that this book is one that people should read, eating disorder or not. If you want to know the "why's" of eating disoders then read this book. If you want to gain better knowledge of ED's on a personal level because you've experienced one, read it. You'll learn more about yourself and others.
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