Father Knows Less Or

Customer Reviews

• Enjoyable, informative and bizzare ;->  Sep 6, 2007 (16 of 17 found this helpful)

  This is a really clever book. Wendell Jamieson wrote this book because his son Dean asked him questions all the time that he couldn't answer. Was was stumped all the time. Out of his own curiosity, he started researching these questions and here are the results.
  Now these questions aren't all your typical questions we adults might ask each other; - it's definately the stuff of a childs mind. For example, one question is Why is the road always wet in car commercials (I never would have thought of that myself)? Wendell went to the experts for this and found out that because the car is the star of the commercial, you have to make it look as good as possible and on a dry road (which is a flat grey color) the car won't appear as good as a wet road which appears black. All the colors of the cars pop. Wendell makes sure that the answers are simple enough for kids to understand and learn from.
  Working in pharmacy, I really love the question about why doctors have messy handwritting. That's hillarious. (answer; because doctors are impatient, and would rather spend their time with the patient helping them, then writting scripts).
  This is such an enjoyable book for almost anyone (although it's definately geared for kids). There are so many things you would never have thought to ask in here, but after reading this, I found that I don't think I could have answered even half of these questions correctly at all. A very fun read.

• Parents will appreciate this  Oct 29, 2007 (6 of 7 found this helpful)

  This is an enjoyable book, especially for parents of young children. Some parts are funny, some educational and some show tender moments of discovery by a father and son learning from each other.
  
  The book has an unusual format with author Wendell Jamieson mixing stories about his son, Dean, with attempts to answer the odd and offbeat questions of children. Jamieson collected questions from kids -- such as "When you have brain freeze, does you brain actually freeze?" or "Why is there war?" -- and got experts to answer them.
  
  There's a bit of a hit and miss quality to the questions -- some are interesting and enlightening, some less so.
  
  Jamieson's descriptions of raising his son will resonate with many parents. The anxiety that the author and his wife feel over Dean's early speech problems -- and their joy when he worked through the difficulties --- is the kind of thing that moms and dads will understand.
  
  I also give the author points for honesty for describing how he lost his cool in an argument with his wife and broke the lock off their door.

• Smart, quirky, and a little precious  Oct 19, 2007 (5 of 6 found this helpful)

  "Why is the sky blue?" "Were Tyrannasaurus Rexes mean?" Kids ask a lot of questions. This book sets out to answer them. Divided into chapters by roughly by subject matter, this book covers questions about linguistics, sex, biology, physics, and more. While most questions are drawn from the author's own children and friends' children, some are posed by children whose parents found their way to his website.
  
  A book like this runs the risk of preciousness (awwww, look at those cute things kids ask) and I can't say that the author avoided it. I do appreciate, however, that he didn't talk down to the kids, and went straight to the Experts. The author didn't shirk on experts, either, but lined up an impressive array of academics and policymakers who, in turn, didn't talk down either.
  
  The main weakness of the book was the personal essays used to link each chapter to one another. While I appreciated the author trying to create a narrative link, I found them rather dull and self indulgent. The exception was the epilogue, which provided some necessary thoughtfulness and gravity.
  
  All in all, this was a somewhat weightier "bathroom book". Easy, accessible snippets to be picked up and put down and not thought about in between reads.

• A Great Memoir  Sep 9, 2007 (5 of 6 found this helpful)

  While the questions in Jamieson's book are definitely fun, enlightining, and clever, it's the personal essays preceding each set of questions that really make this book enjoyable to read. Jamieson crafts a beautifully written, funny, smart, memoir of his own journey of re-discovering - and explaining - his childhood self through his journey as a father. In his search to find the answers to his son's questions, he also goes on a quest back into his own childhood, and the wonderment of that world. When you read the essays through like a memoir, you find gently recurring themes such as his relationship with his father, September 11, growing up in New York, and of course, parenthood shared with his wife. Each theme becomes its own character in the book - growing and changing alongside Jamieson.
  
  I read the essays first, and now I am going back to all the questions and answers, which take on a different meaning now that I know more about Jamieson's life and why finding these answers were so important.
  The book is less for kids, and more for those who like a well-written, entertaining, engaging, memoir that seeks to find answers on so many different levels.

• Delightful insights into our world  Sep 8, 2007 (4 of 5 found this helpful)

  The beauty of this book is that all the questions come from children who have yet to take things for granted. As adults, I believe that most of us simply come to understand the world with a cool acceptance and think no more upon the matter. The questions are ingenius thoughts from inquisitive minds and it is fascinating to read the answers. One of my particular favorites are "Why are people ticklish, and why sometimes are they not ticklish?" The answer was a total surprise and a delightful insight in our human bodies.
  
  I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading interesting but commonly unknown facts. This is a light read and can be read casually.