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Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson; New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009 272 pages * $25.00 (hardcover)
Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do is a controversial, opinionated book that discusses the effects of computer gaming on children. The authors, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, are knowledgeable and have written extensively about the topic.
As the title indicates, many of the authors' findings may come as a surprise: chiefly, they believe that exposing children to violent games is not as risky as the public has been told. Moreover, they argue that much of society's concern about children's computer use has resulted from junk science, hypocritical pundits, and politicians who waste millions of dollars legislating a nonissue. Grand Theft Childhood is intended to remedy these concerns by critically reviewing the literature, discussing the authors' own research findings, and giving parents advice-lofty aspirations, which the book fails to accomplish.
The book consists of 229 pages of text plus end notes and an index. It is organized into 9 chapters that cover a remarkably wide array of topics. Included is a well-written chapter that reviews the history of media violence in American novels, films, and...