Review: Karr-Morse & Wiley, Ghosts from the Nursery

[truepenny]

Ghosts From The Nursery: Tracing The Roots Of Violence by Robin Karr-Morse

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I wanted this book to be more interesting than it was. Maybe it's just that it's 20 years old, or that its conclusions seem so common-sense to me: yes, of course, the first three years of a person's life are vital to their development, and if those years are filled with abuse and neglect, the person is likely--though not guaranteed--to turn out violent, impulsive, and thus most likely to commit violent crimes. Intervention can turn a child's life around, but the earlier the better, and sometimes no amount of intervention can undo the damage done. Their prose was competent but unexciting, and I never felt really engaged by the book.



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