This engaging book about the lives of 15 gifted boys and girls is served well by Kirsten Potter’s captivating performance. Speaking clearly in a tone that fits these narratives, she modulates the drama in her voice with taste and sensitive timing. The prodigies that Hulbert profiles are both well known and obscure, and they’re all interesting. With her gift for narrative propelling these stories, she chronicles how these children’s extraordinary talent complicated their relationships with parents and other authority figures, and provoked controversy about how society should relate to them. Their exceptionality changed almost everything about their lives and made normal character development and even career success challenging. With insights highly relevant to the challenges of raising any child, this is a must-hear for those who have young people in their care. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

In Off the Charts, Hulbert attempts to capture the complicated lives of child prodigies without descending into voyeurism or caricature. She has tried to "listen hard for the prodigies' side of the story," to her great credit…Hulbert's diligence results in a surprising payoff: The best advice for managing a child prodigy may be a wise strategy for parenting any child, including the many, many nonbrilliant ones…Accept who they are. That doesn't mean protecting them from failure or stress; quite the opposite…Parents must hold children accountable and help them thrive, which is easier said than done; but if they try to re-engineer the fundamentals of their offspring, they will fail spectacularly, sooner or later. And this lesson is particularly obvious in the extremes.

09/04/2017
Through the experiences of 15 remarkably gifted children and their parents, Hulbert (Raising America) sheds some light on the lives of child prodigies. Her subjects range from early 20th-century math phenomenon Norbert Wiener to extraordinary modern-day pianist Marc Yu. Along with profiling individuals, Hulbert explores various aspects of the experiences of child prodigies as a whole, including their tendency to “thrive on receptive culture,” the connection of young genius to autism and autism-spectrum disorder, and the drive and extreme focus common to gifted children, characteristics that can lead to defiant behavior and that don’t always “transfer seamlessly to school, or to life,” as evidenced by the example of chess master Bobby Fischer. Hulbert stresses that extraordinarily gifted children are not adults, although they are often treated as though they were. She also points out that gifted children are often micromanaged, missing out on the opportunity to “obsess on their own idiosyncratic terms” and grow and learn from their mistakes. Although the subjects and material are intriguing, Hulbert’s writing can be academic, keeping the reader at an arm’s length from the children’s stories. (Jan. 2018)

Compelling. . . . Child prodigies have always been fascinating [and] today their lives resonate with special force.” —The Washington Post
 
“Part ode to young genius, part indictment of helicopter parenting, Hulbert’s crisply written account of überachieving kids probes our own complicated obsessions with talent and the need to stand out.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Engaging and insightful. . . . Hulbert approaches her dozen or so subjects not as a social scientist but as biographer and essayist, where her skills are superlative.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A profound, sensitive look at what it takes to make a child prodigy, and the unexpected ways that brilliance can play out in the long run.” —The Saturday Evening Post

“What can we learn, in a society dedicated to high-achieving children, from children who seem ‘naturally’ off the charts in their achievements? . . . [Hulbert] does the good work, throughout, of resisting morals or too neat generalizations.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

“Captures the complicated lives of child prodigies without descending into voyeurism or caricature. [Hulbert] has tried to ‘listen hard for the prodigies’ side of the story,’ to her great credit.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Fascinating if at times disturbing. . . . [Hulbert] makes clear, in this nuanced and meticulous book, that when it comes to the prodigy’s gift, the peril is indivisible from the glory.” —Newsday
 
“In this beautifully written, thoroughly reported look at young ‘geniuses,’ Hulbert poses fascinating questions about the roles of both genetics and pushy parents.” —Booklist (starred review)

This engaging book about the lives of 15 gifted boys and girls is served well by Kirsten Potter’s captivating performance. Speaking clearly in a tone that fits these narratives, she modulates the drama in her voice with taste and sensitive timing. The prodigies that Hulbert profiles are both well known and obscure, and they’re all interesting. With her gift for narrative propelling these stories, she chronicles how these children’s extraordinary talent complicated their relationships with parents and other authority figures, and provoked controversy about how society should relate to them. Their exceptionality changed almost everything about their lives and made normal character development and even career success challenging. With insights highly relevant to the challenges of raising any child, this is a must-hear for those who have young people in their care. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

2017-09-25
A journalist vividly portrays the positive and negative impacts of being a child prodigy.Literary editor of the Atlantic, Hulbert (Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children, 2003, etc.) follows her previous examination of the challenges of child-rearing by homing in on a special population of children: prodigies. She begins her sympathetic, sharply drawn profiles early in the 20th century with William James Sidis (his godfather was philosopher William James), a mathematics genius who entered Harvard at the age of 11, and his contemporary Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, who at the age of 15 arrived at Harvard as a graduate student in zoology. Other prodigies include the talented and adorable child star Shirley Temple; African-American pianist Philippa Schuyler; irascible chess champion Bobby Fischer; eccentric computer whizzes such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jonathan Edwards; and several astonishing pianists: Jay Greenberg, who produced a staggering number of compositions by the time he was 8; Matt Savage, who transferred his love of numbers to the piano keyboard; and Marc Yu, who performed with Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall when he was 10. Investigating the correlation between genius and autism, Hulbert cites the observation of one Juilliard teacher: "Genius is an abnormality, and can signal other abnormalities," such as "A.D.D. or O.C.D. or Asperger's. Yet parents are apt to focus on the outsized talent, while often failing to help the child deal with social and emotional problems. Growing into adulthood, many prodigies experience depression and lash out in rebellion; early mastery "may become shadowed by anxiety, blocking the engagement with a wider world that helps gifts and creativity flourish." Hulbert intends these portraits to serve as cautionary tales in "an overachiever culture of hovering adults and social media-saturated youths," and she counsels parents against "the impulse to herald children's talents" at the risk of "inspiring swelled heads and raising sky-high hopes that are likely to be disappointed."A persuasive argument for nurturing "childhood normalcy" even for the stunningly gifted and talented.