This is a book that would ultimately have had to be written. The numerous parents who ask psychoanalytic lecturers again and again, "What book can I read which will help me understand my children?", can without hesitation be directed to Dr. De Kok's book. Simply and clearly it meets all the usual problems that confront the mother of a child from its birth to the age of five. Dr. De Kok's experience in using her psychoanalytic understanding constructively in raising her own two children, gives the book a practical value for parents which exposition alone never accomplishes. She writes primarily as a mother, rather than as a physician, and the observations of her daughter and son with which she freely illustrates her suggestions for guidance, give clarity to her own attitude and the attitude she desires to inculcate in parents toward their children in meeting typical critical situations of childhood. The illustrative case material is the most helpful part of the book for parents to whom it is primarily addressed. For analysts, it is a