Right away there was the happy possibility that I would have a positive response to Maria Montessori: A Biography since the book was written by -none other than - Rita Kramer. She is also the author of the investigative account Ed School Follies: the Miseducation of America's Teachers. She has also been a contributor to some solid periodicals, such as The Wilson Quarterly, American Heritage, and the American Spectator. And she is certainly a reader of that great French-born American teacher, the venerable Jacques Barzun (99 years old!). Ms. Kramer seems to have accepted an offer to write this particular biography based on her expertise in early education, her reputation for solid research, and an objective journalistic approach to her work, but presumably not as a Montessorian. What the reader gets is a factual, historically accurate, rolling account of a person worth the biography. Granted, I'm sold on Montessori anyway, regardless of the struggling doctor's genius or shortcomings, so this story for me is more for a good read on how it all came together. And a good read it is, by any standard.

The inspiring and sometimes inspired messages from these talks by men from Montessori, Fourth Way, Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, and Subud backgrounds are surprisingly of one accord: We risk poisoning our children with our over-weening efforts to "give them" what we scarcely can claim to possess ourselves. Rather, our role, according to a broad concensus ascertained here, is to put our own inner lives in order that we might see clearly the balance of structure and freedom necessary to let the child's spirituality mature naturally. Clearly, Mr. Bennett understood developmental psychology well and could himself recognize the stages in a child's inner as well as outer development, as well as articulate what is crucial in each stage.

A guide to child development combined with a catalog of books and materials for this age group. This and Susan Stephenson's other book, Child of the World: Michael Olaf's Essential Montessori for 3-12+, are also available direct from the publisher, Michael Olaf Montessori Company.

Lillard's book is great first book for parents to read to learn the basic theories. It is very much a summary of Montessori methods and an answer to many of the criticism's of Montessori up to the 1970's. Lillard quotes Dr. Montessori extensively, so much so that it seems that the reader is getting the best pieces of Montessori's own writings in a nutshell. The writing style of both Lillard and Montessori is complex, but if you stick with it, you will find great wisdom.