BOOK FORUM

Abstract

Assistant Editor's Note: This installment of the Book Forum features reviews of two fourth-edition texts, Lewis's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Green's Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychopharmacology, as well as another comprehensive book, Clinical Manual of Eating Disorders. These are the volumes that we who care for children choose to read when looking for a well-referenced overview, for a thoughtful synthesis of new material, or for management guidelines. We may peruse these books after hours when we need help formulating a diagnosis or creating a treatment plan for a challenging patient. Although Reese Abright and Rosa Kim compare the new Lewis's to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, even they would agree that no youngster is staying up late at night to read Lewis's under the covers. Tricks, not textbooks, are better for kids. But Harry's lessons in magic come with the warning, “Do not try this at home,” which leads me to ask, are there books for kids that combine accessible, fun facts, and tomfoolery all in one? The Dangerous Book for Boys was welcomed as the book that would propel kids out of their seats in front of the television and into the backyard tree house. It, like its newly released companion piece, The Daring Book for Girls, is an attempt to satisfy an unmet need in the lives of both children and their parents. Our reviewer questions its success. What do you think? Let us know…join the forum. It is ironic that, at the same time as chapters on “play therapy” are trimmed from major child and adolescent psychiatry textbooks, readers of all ages keep searching for instructions on how to play.