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Also by Susan Gregory Thomas:

Buy, Buy Baby, May 2007
Hardcover

BUY, BUY BABY
By: Susan Gregory Thomas

How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds

Houghton Mifflin
May 2007
On Sale: May 8, 2007
288 pages
ISBN: 0618463518
EAN: 9780618463510
Hardcover
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Self-Help

It’s no secret that toy and media corporations manipulate the insecurities of parents to move their products, but Buy, Buy Baby unveils the chilling fact that these corporations are using— and often funding—the latest research in child development in order to sell things directly to babies and toddlers. Thomas offers other, perhaps even more unnerving epiphanies: the lack of evidence that “educational” shows and toys provide any educational benefit at all for young children; and the growing evidence that some of these products actually impair early development, and could harm our kids socially and cognitively for life. Underlying these revelations is a dangerous economic and cultural shift: our kids are becoming consumers at alarmingly young ages and suffering all the ills that rampant materialism used to visit only on adults—from anxiety to hyper-competitiveness to depression. Thomas blends prodigious reportage with an empathetic voice. Her two daughters were toddlers while she wrote this book, and she never loses sight of the temporal and emotional challenges that parents face.

Media Buzz

Early Show - May 10, 2007
Morning Edition - May 4, 2007