Product Description

Author Karen Isaacson will have readers laughing out loud with her Erma Bombeck-like stories on life with an eclectic but endearing gifted and creative family!

The quirky cast of characters includes: the daughter who thinks she's related to an imaginary family of rabbits; the son who recites entire scenes (not just lines) from movies; the sister who makes pretty designs with the ovals of a bubble sheet during a test instead of answering the questions; and the grandmother who fixes tuna fish and jellybean sandwiches for lunch!

Reading these unbelieveable (but true!) stories will not only help you appreciate your own family, but also give you an informal introduction to the world of giftedness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #671085 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

Fearless Reviews, November, 2002
"all proud parents will enjoy reading this funny book."

Davidson Institute for Talent Development, December, 2002
"Hats off to you, Ms. Isaacson, for sharing your stories and your wisdom...this book scores a perfect 10."

Midwest Book Review, Fall, 2002
"Raisin' Brains is delightful and highly recommended reading."

Customer Reviews

A Mom's Choice Awards Recipient!
The Mom's Choice Awards® honors excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of the panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, Ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times Best-Selling Author; LeAnn Thieman, Motivational speaker and coauthor of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books; Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, and founder of The Just For Mom Foundation(tm) and the Mom's Choice Awards®. Parents and educators look for the Mom's Choice Awards® seal in selecting quality materials and products for children and families. This book has been honored by this distinguished award.

Down to earth, Informative and Entertaining
I found this book wonderfully informative and refreshingly written in a conversational format with lots of personal experience and humor thrown in. It was not what I was expecting, however. After reading the reviews, I was disappointed to not laugh out loud until several chapters into the book. Despite this, I enjoyed it enough that I did recommend it to several friends and bought copies to give to my siblings for Christmas. (Maybe now we will understand my brother blowing himself up with rocket fuel he had made with his chemistry set at age 13....)

The easy format doesn't require the concentration of some of the more sterile books on parenting a gifted child, but seemed to have almost as much information. There were many excerpts that made me smile but only a few parts where I laughed so hard that I thought I would cry. The best part of this book was that it helped me to understand my own family - both past and present - and realize that what we often take to be ADHD or ordinary weirdness, is just a normal symptom of having a differently wired brain, intense concentration and an amazing imagination.

Another feature of this book that I appreciated was its lack of glorifying giftedness. Instead of describing it as a trait to aspire to, it talks about it clearly as the strength and curse that it is for those that are born with it. It talks about the different needs of a gifted child in education and life with detail and many zany examples. It emphasizes throughout the differences in giftedness levels as well as giftedness in many different areas. She talked about her 5 children and their varying strengths and interests. She gave her five children and 4 siblings interesting names to protect their identities; names like Myron, Pandora, Stanley, Magnolia and Otto. As she teaches through conversation and silly examples, she "keeps it real", reminding us that all parents ask themselves often why they chose to have children, but always know the real reason deep inside.

The ability to laugh at oneself and enjoy our situation and gifted children is one that is often overlooked and a much needed trait for surviving this path of raising gifted children. This book is very refreshing and should be a definite addition to any gifted library. I highly recommend it for gifted parents, educators and older gifted children. For most of us, this will be the copy that is most worn and most lent out....

you'll laugh out loud
I think the person who wrote the negative review below (see Adderall)has no sense of humor. This book is hilarious. The family it describes is hilarious. These are bright,creative, interesting people. Not every family is like this, but this family is authentic. Those of us who work with gifted kids know families like this. We appreciate bright, creative kids who can think in unique ways. Creativity means thinking outside the box; and we're going to need lots of creative thinkers like the ones in this family to solve the world's problems.