Perfect Little World
Book Review - Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson is the last of the books I brought with me on vacation in Cabo, Mexico. I finished And We're Off by Dana Schwartz and Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane while I was in Cabo, and although I started Perfect Little World, I didn't finish it until I was back at home in Chicago. Finishing two and a half books isn't bad for a week's vacation!
The story focuses on a group of 10 families brought together to live as one family, raising their 10 children, all born within about a month of each other, collectively. For the first five years, the kids didn't even know who their biological parents were - every adult treated every child as if they were their own. Dr. Preston Grind, a children's psychologist, designed the project and led the research with three graduate assistants. The story focuses primarily on Izzy, a single, teenage mother-to-be, beginning with how she came to be pregnant and why she agreed to join this study.
I really enjoyed this book! I thought the premise was unique, I certainly have never read a book about raising children as a community. I love those types of books that stretch your understanding of something basic (such as families.) I don't come across them very often, but when I do the book tends to stick with me. Another book comes to mind that I think about often: The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. Similarly, The Age of Miracles is about a truly unique idea: that the Earth's rotation begins to slow and our days and nights became longer.
I love how authors are able to imagine how societies will respond to these radical changes. In Perfect Little World, Kevin Wilson imagines how the outside world would respond to people living and raising their children together. In The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker imagines how society would adapt to longer days. Would people try to keep their waking hours during daylight hours and sleep at night? Or would people maintain a strict 24-hour system where a day is 24 hours no matter what despite when daylight occurred. Fascinating stuff!
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