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I was at the New England Conference for Gifted and Talented for a while, yesterday. While I was there, I picked up a few books that had been on my list for a while. The books are Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits by Deirdre Lovecky; The Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Kids: Understanding and Guiding Their Development by Tracy Cross; Developing Math Talent: A Guide for Educating Gifted and Advanced Learners in Math by Susan Assouline and Ann Lupkowski-Shopik; and Exceptionally Gifted Children (2nd edition) by Miraca Gross.
This brief review is only looking at the Cross book. Other reviews will follow, as time and motivation allow.
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I've either never met Tracy Cross or, if I have, I've forgotten meeting him. (To the point that I did not know it was a him until reading about the author!) But a suggestion that the book was focused on social and emotional needs of gifted is bound to catch my attention every time. It did, so I picked up the book. What is not readily apparent from the cover is that Tracy Cross did not write a book. He compiled a lot of columns he had previously written for Gifted Child Today (GCT) and organized them into chapters with linking material. As a result, it seems, there is no index. To me, that is a major flaw in a book that is intended as a resource rather than as a book to read from front to back.
It is crafted at a text book, in that each chapter has key concepts listed at the beginning and questions at the end. The concepts are good. The references from both within and without the field of Gifted Education are worthwhile and applied in meaningful ways. Yet, because these were columns rather than real chapters, there is little depth to be found. An example of this would be in his segment on bullying. Other than a passing reference to his co-authored book with Coleman and a definition provided by Webster's, there are no external resources mentioned. It is as if there were no research into bullying, either causes or responses to it.
The flip side is that by nature of being a periodical column, he had many items that were of topical interest, reflecting on Columbine, 9/11, and a variety of other issues. Unfortunately (from my perspective), he permitted that very topicality to get him to include a piece that was not from his regular column. GCT had a variety of folks compose Top Ten lists about the most important events in Gifted Education in the 20th Century. Cross's response to this prompt is the final chapter in the book. It does not fit thematically nor does it add meaningfully to the discussion. None of the turning points in meeting gifted children's social and emotional needs has made it onto his list.
While there is no index, there is a references section at the back, with articles and books followed by the now obligatory list of organizations and state contacts with their websites and/or emails. I looked through the references section and was very underwhelmed. There are 35 articles and books mentioned, of which 6 are items he wrote or co-wrote. Only 2 others are more recent than 1996. There is no mention of Counseling the Gifted and Talented by Silverman, nor of Barbara Kerr's works on either counseling or gifted girls. A good number of the references are of scant use to a parent, teacher, or child, such as Suicide by Aircraft: A Case Report.
To me, the two best features of this book are Cross's use of Erickson's Theory of Psychosocial Development and Tom Buescher's A Framework for Understanding the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted and Talented Students from Roeper Review 8, pages 10-15 (in 1985). And if you had the originals in both cases, you would probably be better served.
This brief review is only looking at the Cross book. Other reviews will follow, as time and motivation allow.
********
I've either never met Tracy Cross or, if I have, I've forgotten meeting him. (To the point that I did not know it was a him until reading about the author!) But a suggestion that the book was focused on social and emotional needs of gifted is bound to catch my attention every time. It did, so I picked up the book. What is not readily apparent from the cover is that Tracy Cross did not write a book. He compiled a lot of columns he had previously written for Gifted Child Today (GCT) and organized them into chapters with linking material. As a result, it seems, there is no index. To me, that is a major flaw in a book that is intended as a resource rather than as a book to read from front to back.
It is crafted at a text book, in that each chapter has key concepts listed at the beginning and questions at the end. The concepts are good. The references from both within and without the field of Gifted Education are worthwhile and applied in meaningful ways. Yet, because these were columns rather than real chapters, there is little depth to be found. An example of this would be in his segment on bullying. Other than a passing reference to his co-authored book with Coleman and a definition provided by Webster's, there are no external resources mentioned. It is as if there were no research into bullying, either causes or responses to it.
The flip side is that by nature of being a periodical column, he had many items that were of topical interest, reflecting on Columbine, 9/11, and a variety of other issues. Unfortunately (from my perspective), he permitted that very topicality to get him to include a piece that was not from his regular column. GCT had a variety of folks compose Top Ten lists about the most important events in Gifted Education in the 20th Century. Cross's response to this prompt is the final chapter in the book. It does not fit thematically nor does it add meaningfully to the discussion. None of the turning points in meeting gifted children's social and emotional needs has made it onto his list.
While there is no index, there is a references section at the back, with articles and books followed by the now obligatory list of organizations and state contacts with their websites and/or emails. I looked through the references section and was very underwhelmed. There are 35 articles and books mentioned, of which 6 are items he wrote or co-wrote. Only 2 others are more recent than 1996. There is no mention of Counseling the Gifted and Talented by Silverman, nor of Barbara Kerr's works on either counseling or gifted girls. A good number of the references are of scant use to a parent, teacher, or child, such as Suicide by Aircraft: A Case Report.
To me, the two best features of this book are Cross's use of Erickson's Theory of Psychosocial Development and Tom Buescher's A Framework for Understanding the Social and Emotional Development of Gifted and Talented Students from Roeper Review 8, pages 10-15 (in 1985). And if you had the originals in both cases, you would probably be better served.
