All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten : Fifteenth Anniversary EditionReconsidered, Revised, & Expanded With Twenty-Five New Essays

Author: Robert Fulghum
List Price: $23.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0345466179
Publisher: Ballantine Books (30 September, 2003)
Sales Rank: 20,430
Average Customer Rating: 3.83 out of 5

Customer Reviews

Rating: 5 out of 5
A wonderful book from an American Hero
Fulghum's outlook on life is refreshing. He finds simple pleasures in everyday life that many people are missing. The core of his book(s) revolves around treating ourselves and others with kindness, exploring everything with wonder our Surroundings, and giving each other that special kind of boost that says I know your their and I'm glad. If you're looking for deep thought and didn't find it here I challenge you to reread it. I would go so far to say that he is the Tao Tzu of out times. In a world so filled with hatred and actions designed to break others down Fulghum has written a book that can bring the kind, wonderous child in all of us out. I cannot recommend it more.

finally, Yes I always buy lemonaid from kids on the street corner even if I have to circle the block. It's worth the smiles :)

Rating: 5 out of 5
Buy it, read it, enjoy it, recommend it!
Robert Fulghum has written a book of philosophy disguised as a book of anecdotes. Each lasts a couple of pages or so and is just enough to convey some important principle. They range from the trite to the inspirational, the mundane to the spiritual. Along the way he gives us his thoughts on grandfathers, God, children, giraffes, and just about everything you need to know. Some of his stories are about the man next door, others about famous people. Some are real, others made up, but they all convey universal truths. When you read this book you will probably think 'Hey I knew that already!' But all the same it's heart warming to have someone tell you in such a homely, friendly style. By the end of the book I felt I knew Robert Fulghum and would be happy to invite him to tea with me any time he happened to be passing. I read this on recommendation and in turn will be recommending it to anyone who will listen.

Rating: 1 out of 5
Simple-minded, boring stuff
I remember exactly where I threw this book into the trash. It was in a chapter where Fulghum was wondering where all our "childhood potential" had gone. That is to say, kindergartners (allegedly) all say they can dance AND sing AND paint AND do anything at all. But when you talk with people of college age, you suddenly discover that they have chosen specialties, and are no longer acting as if they had "unlimited potential" in everything.

Fulghum, bathetically, weeps over this enormous loss (?) and wonders what can be wrong with the world which so limits our unlimited potential. (Shades of the lunatic Rousseau!)

As it happened, I was reading William James at the time, and William James produced an excellent explanation of the development which Fulghum was complaining about. To paraphrase: every man would like to be a millionaire, and a great lover, and a saint, and a famous warrior, and a philanthropist, and a star athlete, and a world-famous gourmet. BUT, once you start looking at things seriously, you obviously have to choose, because these roles cannot all fit together in one human being. The philanthropist would be at war with the millionaire, and the saint would conflict with the warrior, and the gourmet would conflict with the athlete.

So we all concentrate on finding our strong points and developing them. People who are musically gifted will study music intensely, while mathematicians will pursue math. As James said, "I myself am a psychologist. I don't mind a bit if you can beat me in Ancient Greek, because I no longer 'carry that line,' as a shopkeeper would say. But, if you say that you are better than me at psychology, my attention is immediately engaged, because my intent is to be the best psychologist in the world."

This is the normal pattern of child and adolescent development. That Fulghum could be ignorant of such an obvious thing truly does make one think that he stopped learning in kindergarten.

And some people think that education is a life-long process! :-0

This book is poppycock. Not recommended at all.

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