The Owner's Manual For Driving Your Adolescent Brain
In their introduction, the Deaks use the analogy of learning to drive a car to describe how their book is going to help adolescents learn to drive their brains. The idea of a car owner’s manual is quite apt, since the two PhDs take readers on a hard-science tour of the physical makeup of the brain and offer ways to better understand, protect, and improve it. Though the authors are initially heavy with terms like neuron, axon, and corpus callosum, they work hard to not alienate the less scientifically inclined by using a friendly, reassuring manner and frequent references to invitingly familiar things, such as sports and music. Harrison’s warm illustrations help considerably, featuring smiling adolescents interacting with enlarged parts of the brain’s geography or playing guitar, and these pictures situate the reading audience comfortably at the lower end of adolescence. With recommendations for exercising and working hard, a section devoted entirely to puberty, a glossary, and further-reading suggestions, this is a well-rounded primer that will help adolescents and delight (and potentially educate) their parents. Grades 4-6. --Jesse Karp