Thursday February 10, 2005 All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Fifteenth Anniversary Edition - Robert Fulghum (2003)
**** (out of 5)
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is a compilation of short essays relating the significance of the most simple aspects of life. Fulghum shows in these essays how simple life lessons apply to children and adult alike. This theme is most clearly, and famously, explored in the title essay. In this essay, Fulghum enumerates a series of aphorisms that are often taught to Kindergarten-age children and suggests that these aphorisms are age-neutral.
Of all the essays in the collection, my favorites were "Donny" and "Mother Theresa". "Donny" is the story of a deaf boy who offered to rake the leaves from Fulghum's yard. Despite having previously decided to leave half of his yard unraked as an experiment, Fulghum realizes the relative unimportance of his experiment when weighed against the importance of showing kindness to a child. He acquiesces to Donny's request and provides to him the desired opportunity. "Mother Theresa" is Fulghum's tribute to Mother Theresa and her philosophy to "[do] small things with great love". Fulghum mentions how Mother Theresa's example should serve as a challenge to the rest of us and should be reflected upon in the context of our own lives.
Fulghum's musings at times demonstrate a marked naivete. In my opinion, however, this more often than not tends to add to the book's appeal rather than detract from it. I found many of Fulghum's essays to be touching and inspiring. While I might not subscribe fully to certain aspects of Fulghum's worldview and religious skepticism, I wholeheartedly embrace his simple optimism and his belief in the goodness that can be found in the world and its people. In an age where cynicism seems to be rampant, we need more books like All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.
( Feb 10 2005, 02:50:58 PM PST )
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