Short: Walking Tall When You're Not Tall at All

This book is supposed to be for young people...between the ages of about 12 and 18, but the message is so good and can benefit anyone, young, old, short, tall, skinny, fat, or whatever. I knew about the book because it was written by my son, John. He is the third of four sons....the first being twins. The other three boys are average size, but John was always small - "the runt of the litter". He did get bullied at school. He even got bullied on the school bus on his way to school, but one of his older brothers, Dicky, got on the bus with him one day and announced that anyone who picked on his brother, Johnny, would be dealing next with him. No one wanted to deal with Dicky. John found activities to do in school that weren't affected by his size. When John was young, a doctor suggested that we give him growth hormones. These hormones were the newest big thing in medicine. Maybe they would have given him an inch or two, but we were concerned about any side effects they hay have. As it turned out, very serious side effects were later discovered. Not only that, John looked perfect to us. I can heartily and happily recommend this book to all children and adults...and not just because I'm his Mom.

Journalist John Schwartz knows just how it feels to be short. He's heard all the jokes and put downs. In this book he takes a close look at famous height studies. The more he learned about being short the more he has learned to embrace it. I think that kids short or not can take away a good message from reading this book. Outward appearances are not important no matter what the media would like for you to believe. Children need to learn that they are who they are and that's a good thing! It covers the topic of self esteem in a humorous way.

This highly readable and deeply moving book isn't just for short kids -- it's perfect for any young readers who've ever been ostracized because they're built differently. (For that matter, it's perfect for the ostracizers too.) Schwartz is a former science reporter for The New York Times (he also trained as a lawyer and recently became the paper's national legal correspondent; so much for any easy myths about stature and achievement) and his sections on the science of shortness are particularly good reading. His clear, brisk explanation of the statistical analysis behind marketing to short people is worth the price of admission all by itself. As good as the science stuff is, though, this is at its heart a book with a humane message: Anybody who tries to make you feel bad because you're different doesn't have science, logic or history on his side.