Around the world, countries are embracing early-childhood projects, opening snazzy centres and dispatching home visitors. But too many projects are of poor quality. Mr Tough shows that it need not be this way.

[A book] you really should read.

Packed with . . . research-based insights into addressing students’ core social and emotional needs. For the past decade or more Tough has been one of the pre-eminent reporters translating education research for public consumption. His new, slim book is no exception, and it contains some surprises for fans of his previous work.

This book upends everything we thought we knew about where grit comes from and how to get it.

Tough is adept at translating academic jargon into precise, accessible prose . . . Tough promotes [his argument] so persuasively.

A thought-provoking new book . . . An important step in the right direction.

When author Paul Tough released How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character in 2012, it spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller lists and was translated into 27 languages . . . Now he’s back with a new book that builds on his previous work. Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why explains how parents, teachers and administrators can create environments to foster qualities that lead to success.

Tough mixes hard truths and hopefulness . . . Tough offers limited proof that early stress can be overcome and that kids who get care when they are still very young can enter kindergarten at the same level as better-off kids.

Ruth Whippman manages the trick of being funny about what is, deep down, a serious problem

If you're on a quest for happiness, you want to start with buying this book. Wit, wisdom, and the kind of analysis only a Brit could bring to the topics of anxiety and contentment ... I laughed my way through it.

With insight and intellect, Whippman brings a fresh perspective to American culture that is almost impossible to find in today’s positivity-at-all-costs ethos ... a vibrant, hilarious, necessary book.

Ruth Whippman cuts to the heart of America's obsession with happiness - and the strange and wonderful things we do to obtain it ... a funny, timely book that everyone should read

For anyone who has fallen prey to a book promising the secret of a happy life, and then failed to feel any happier, THIS book, by Whippman, might just provide the answers you didn't even know you were seeking.

So well-written and witty, you won’t notice that Whippman is delivering a devastating verdict on positive psychology as pseudoscience.

Ruth Whippman captures the absurdity of our late capitalist moment with sharp, insightful prose and a wicked sense of humor that makes every single page a pure joy to read. The Pursuit of Happiness not only entertains without fail, but it also offers a wealth of devastating insights into how our culture demands happiness of us in ways that only seem to make us miserable ... I don't think I've enjoyed cultural observations this much since David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Reading this book is like touring America with a scary-smart friend who can't stop elbowing you in the ribs and saying, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?!" If you want to understand why our culture incites pure dread and alienation in so many of us (often without always recognizing it), read this book.