Sonderbooks Book Review of A Mind at a Time

Reviewed July 18, 2002.
A Sonderbooks' Best Book of 2002 (#2, Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, 2002. 352 pages. Available at Sembach Library (370.15 LEV).

Here’s a bestseller that deserves to be one. I hope that many teachers and parents will make this their summer reading.

This is a book about learning. Dr. Levine breaks the process of learning into a multitude of component parts. He shows many different places where the system can break down for a child and gives ideas on how to help a child get back on track.

Dr. Levine believes that every mind has strengths and weaknesses. When a child comes up against an obstacle to learning, he does not believe we should blame the child, but help the child get around the roadblock via his strengths.

This book was difficult reading, because it was so in depth. He thoroughly covered eight “neurodevelopmental systems:” the Attention Control System, the Memory System, the Language System, the Spatial Ordering System, the Sequential Ordering System, the Motor System, the Higher Thinking System, and the Social Thinking System. He talked about how these systems work, breaking them into further components. He also told about how they interact and contribute to learning, and how they tend to change over time.

Even if you don’t have children, this is an interesting look at how the human mind works. If you do have children, or if you work with children, this book provides an invaluable look at children’s minds. This book is fascinating as well as inspiring.

Reviews of other books by Dr. Levine:
The Myth of Laziness
Ready or Not, Here Life Comes

-top of page-

Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

*****A Mind at a Time*

America’s Top Learning Expert Shows How Every Child Can Succeed

by Mel Levine, M.D.