In luminous prose, novelist and psychologist Charles Fernyhough explains how children develop from squalling babies into walking, talking toddlers.
For Charles Fernyhough, the birth of his daughter Athena was an opportunity to re-evaluate much of what he had learned as a researcher in developmental psychology. Drawing on the detailed notes he made during her infancy, Fernyhough uses Athena's story to explain how a child's mind develops before the age of three, tapping into a parent's wonder at the processes of psychological development in an engaging, child-centred way. It is written with a father's tenderness and a novelist's empathy and style.