cover image Growing Up Isn't Hard to Do If You Start Out as a Kid: Children's Candid Views of Everyday Life

Growing Up Isn't Hard to Do If You Start Out as a Kid: Children's Candid Views of Everyday Life

David Heller. Villard Books, $18 (263pp) ISBN 978-0-394-58713-4

The author of Dear God: Children's Letters to God here collects a humorous and insightful miscellany of children's views of the adult world. A child psychologist, Heller asked children between the ages of four and 10 about six basic subjects: marriage, parenthood, food, possessions, work and growing up. Thus, we hear from a six-year-old: ``Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don't have to give her back to her parents''; and from a 10-year-old, ``As soon as I hear the word work, my back starts to hurt a lot and I get cramps in my legs.'' Entertaining and lively, the children's observations often are right on the mark. BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour. (Apr.)