The Famous ‘Kindergarten’ Book

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I wrote and posted the following†book review and summary on the e-zine, ForAdultsAlso.com (http://www.foradultsalso.com/wc.php?id=74), late last year about the recently released 15th anniversary edition of All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten†by Robert Fulghum:

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Who doesnít know about this book (the original edition, that is)? There was a time when it was the most talked about and most quoted from book.† But not everybody has actually read the book. I havenít, until recently that is.

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It was a very pleasant surprise when I accidentally stumbled on the book at Power Books in Robinsonís Manila late last year. At first I thought it is a re-printing of the original edition. But then I noticed the label on red circle in the bookís cover: 15^th Anniversary Edition.

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What better time to finally read the famed book but now, with the author giving his retrospective review and commentary of his own book more than 15 years after it was first released? And as a bonus the new edition comes with 25 new essays!

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And how did I find the book? Well, it is okay.

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I believe I need to expound on that seemingly so-so feedback.

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I guess the anything-but-superlative reviews the book received over the last couple of decades may have set the bar too high for the new edition. I may have expected too much prior to reading the book.

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I may have also been quite disappointed to learn that the book is but just a collection of essays by the author, Robert Fulghum, a church minister. I have always assumed that it is a fully-cohesive book explaining how the author came to claiming that he learned from his kindergarten class all that he really needed to know in life. Those who have read the book, either the original or the new edition, know for a fact that the bookís title was just taken from the first essay in Fulghumís collection. There is no unifying plot, just a common inspirational theme.

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Barring my preconceptions/assumptions about the book it is actually a very good book. A great read. An easy read, too, because it is just a collection of essays not directly related to each other.

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So if like me you havenít read the bookís original edition and you are curious what it is all about, here is the crux behind the “All I need to LearnÖ” thesis now as it was then:

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ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

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Share everything.

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Play fair.

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Donít hit people.

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Put things back where you found them.

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Clean up your own mess.

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Donít take things that arenít yours.

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Say youíre sorry when you hurt somebody.

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Wash your hands before you eat.

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Flush.

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Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

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Live a balanced life ñ learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

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Take a nap every afternoon.

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When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

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Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

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Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup ñ they all die. So do we.

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And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned ñ the biggest word of all ñ LOOK.

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Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

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Take any of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life of your work or your government pr your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all ñ the whole world ñ had cookies and milk about three oíclock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

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And it is still true, no matter how old you are ñ when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

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There you go. Thereís all there is about the bookís central theme. If that is all you are interested to know then I just saved you P529.00 (i.e. paperback copy from Power Books).

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But there is more to the book than this. The book is among the few inspirational books that truly inspire. And you can always hand it down to your loved ones after you finish reading it. So go ahead and buy your own copy.

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