Synopses & Reviews
For more than twenty-five years, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has made children her passion and her cause. Her long experience with children -- not only through her personal roles as mother, daughter, sister, and wife but also as advocate, legal expert, and public servant -- has strengthened her conviction that how children develop and what they need to succeed are inextricably entwined with the society in which they live and how well it sustains and supports its families and individuals. In other words, it takes a village to raise a child.
This book chronicles her quest -- both deeply personal and, in the truest sense, public -- to discover how we can make our society into the kind of village that enables children to grow into able, caring, resilient adults. It is time, Mrs. Clinton believes, to acknowledge that we have to make some changes for our children's sake. Advances in technology and the global economy along with other developments society have brought us much good, but they have also strained the fabric of family life, leaving us and our children poorer in many ways -- physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually.
She doesn't believe that we should, or can, turn back the clock to "the good old days." False nostalgia for "family values" is no solution. Nor is it useful to make an all-purpose bogeyman or savior of "government." But by looking honestly at the condition of our children, by understanding the wealth of new information research offers us about them, and, most important, by listening to the children themselves, we can begin a more fruitful discussion about their needs. And by sifting the past for clues to the structures that once bound us together, by looking with an open mind at what other countries and cultures do for their children that we do not, and by identifying places where our "village" is flourishing -- in families, schools, churches, businesses, civic organizations, even in cyberspace -- we can begin to create for our children the better tomorrow they deserve.
Review
Douglas J. Besharov
The Washington Post Book World
A marvelously conceived book...Mrs. Clinton intends nothing less than that we collectively improve the way the nation raises its children.
Review
Betsy Weaver
Los Angeles Times
An extraordinary gift...I read It Takes a Village cover to cover.
Review
Jim Bencivenga
The Christian Science Monitor
It deserves to be read...it would be a loss if the nation missed this opportunity to address the issues she raises.
Review
Susan Larson
New Orleans Times-Picayune
A wake-up call...a comprehensive look at what our children need and want and deserve -- and aren't getting....We should all be reading it, learning from it, and acting on it.
About the Author
Hillary Rodham Clinton is America's First Lady. A longtime child advocate, she lives in the White House with the President and their daughter, Chelsea. This is her first book.
Table of Contents
CONTENTSIt Takes a Village
No Family Is an Island
Every Child Needs a Champion
The Bell Curve Is a Curve Ball
Kids Don't Come with Instructions
The World Is in a Hurry, Children Are Not
An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Intensive Care
Security Takes More Than a Blanket
The Best Tool You Can Give a Child Is a Shovel
Children Are Born Believers
Childhood Can Be a Service Academy
Kids Are an Equal Employment Opportunity
Child Care Is Not a Spectator Sport
Education = Expectations
Seeing Is Believing
Every Business Is a Family Business
Children Are Citizens Too
Let Us Build a Village Worthy of Our Children
Acknowledgments
Index