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At SixSeeds, we believe in the power of a good story.  The books our children are hearing and reading will move, inspire, and sometimes even shape their lives... even young lives. This week, we take a popular kids' book and examine it. Hopefully, the next time you're browsing though a crowded bookstore, our reviews will help you sort through the thousands of titles…  and you can choose wisely!

Title: Incredible You! 10 Ways To Let Your Greatness Shine Through
Author: Dr. Wayne Dyer
Illustrator: Melanie Siegel
Publisher: Hay House Book
Cost: $10.17
Buy it: Here
Rating: 2 out of 6 seeds

Based upon Wayne Dyer’s inspirational book for adults, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, he has written a kid’s book Incredible You! 10 Ways to Let Your Greatness Shine Through. The book takes us through the following steps:

 #1   Share the Good

#2   Find What You Love

#3   You Are Filled With Love

#4   Find a Quiet Place Inside

#5   Make Today Great

#6   Change Your Thoughts to Good

#7   Take Care of Yourself

#8   Picture What You Want

#9   Every One is Special, Especially You

#10 Good Thoughts Give You Energy

After each of these steps, he uses simple rhyming and illustration to interpret his points.  Under the Picture What You Want section, a child receives swimming lessons. On the subsequent page, he stands on the Olympic platform wearing a gold medal with the following explanation.

Pretend you are what you’d like to be.

Make a picture in your mind so you can see

That what you want can come true.

If you believe in your heart, it will come to you.

The illustrations are vibrant and childhood heartaches are conveyed with tenderness.  Dr. Dyer interjects helpful nuggets such as:  “Don’t worry too much about yesterday. Sometimes you need to go to a quiet place.  Find what you love to do. You can’t control what others say or do.”

Are you into positive thinking?  This may be the book for you.  Statements likes this are strewn throughout:

“Bad thoughts zap your energy” and “thinking good thoughts will help you solve all of your problems.”  

New Age wisdom, particularly pantheism, exudes from every page. “Some people feel a loving spirit around them. Some feel it in a church, a place of worship, or in nature. Do you feel this mysterious love that connects us all?”

Greatness is primarily defined in terms of what you can do for you. In the questions in the back, the common theme continues:

What are some things you have done that make you great?

Have you ever drawn a really awesome picture that made you really proud?

Have you ever won a medal or an award?  

The Bottom Line:

The interesting thing about this story is that it’s not interesting at all. It’s already the story that rings in our ear day after day. Does anyone really have to remind us to think about ourselves?  We are regularly consumed with thoughts of ourselves. What’s missing is the reminder to put others first -- to love with abandon someone besides ourselves, to actually reach into the cookie jar (which is what Dyer calls our heart) and love others simply as an end in and of itself. (This contrasts with Dyer’s encouragement “so that it will come back to you.”)

For Parents To Consider:

Sometimes it’s hard to detect that a book is espousing something that’s actually damaging. Especially when the corrosive ideas are illustrated so vibrantly. It’s also easy to dismiss a book with a worldview that opposes our own and shy away from exposing our kids to things that we disagree with (for fear that it may somehow taint them.)  

Everyone has assumptions that inform the way they interact with information. Del Tackett, president of the Focus Leadership Institute, describes a worldview as "the framework from which we view reality and make sense of life and the world.” In this day and age, parents should consider “worldview training” as one of their primary jobs in raising their children to be productive members of society. Tracy Munsil, in her article entitled “Worldview Training” encourages parents to begin the process early.

”Establishing your children’s worldview is like equipping them with a radar screen constructed with … truth. You provide them with a grid of truth so that their alarm goes off as soon as any false idea passes across their screen. If there is no radar screen, there’s no mechanism for distinguishing or discarding false ideas.”

As they go through their lives, kids will encounter many strange ideas and misguided worldviews. But as parents, we can confidently equip the next generation with unchanging values, critical thinking skills, and the confidence to challenge what others are telling them to be true.

To Talk to Your Kids About:

Books are a great place to hone this skill, and Incredible You is rich with conversation opportunities! So let’s take just a few of his suppositions and use them for Worldview Training 101:

#10: Good thoughts give you energy and happy thoughts make you strong and free. Identify an grandparent or someone who is sick or handicapped in your child’s life.  Is this author’s statement true? Do you think this would be a helpful thing to say to an elderly grandparent or friend? Why or why not? 

#8: Picture What You Want.

Does picturing what you want mean it will happen? Do you think that imagining yourself winning is the key to actually winning? How do we deal with disappointments when life doesn’t turn out the way we had hoped?

#2: Change Your Thoughts to Good. (Some problems are big and some are small. Thinking good thoughts can help you solve them all.)

Do you have the power in yourself to solve every problem? If you do, what does that say about your need for anyone else?  How can this false idea make you more judgmental toward others who are suffering or poor?  What is the correct response to others who are struggling?

Would you be interested in this book for your home? It could provide you and yours some great conversation. Leave us a comment and you could win it.

Wait a second…  didn’t you learn anything from this book? As you leave your comment, imagine yourself winning this contest.  Believe it.  Envision it. Think positive thoughts.  What?  You aren’t the type of person who wins contests?  Well, bad thoughts are zapping your energy, obviously.  How the heck do you expect to succeed in life? 

Okay, so it won’t give you an extra advantage.  But if you leave a comment anyway, our random number generator might just select you!

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