Books like Maria Montessori

I don’t usually care about signed books, but after hearing this author speak, I stood in line for just that! Montessori had many insights about children based on her observations, but not everyone believed them. In the years since her death, scientific studies have been conducted that confirm her conclusions. This book is rich in detail about how calls “the factory model” of education came about, and how following Montessori principles can turn this around for the good of children and of society. Professor Lillard, a skeptic until she began her own research to discover and assess authentic Montessori education, details the impact of the movement in learning, executive function, learning from peers, extrinsic rewards and motivation, the order in the environment and the mind, and much more.

What happens after a child finishes Montessori preschool?

That was the question for my own children. I was able to take the Montessori 6-12 training in order to keep up with them, but parents and teachers can learn a lot about this age here. Dr. Montessori examines the educational concerns of the older child, the adolescence, and even the university student. She considers each level on its own because human beings have different needs at different ages. She explores ways to support the physical, mental, social, and psychological needs of each age. It is in this book that we learn about the Erdkinder, or Farm School, where the need for real work, independence, and related research, and work-based academic study is being provided in several countries today.

These lectures were delivered by Montessori during the first teacher training course given in London after she returned from forced exile in India as an Italian national during WWII. I received lectures based on them during my own Montessori course in London, but not until 2012 were they organized and edited by my good friend Annette Haines, and published as a book. Montessori’s granddaughter Renilde Montessori wrote the foreword. The lectures speak to many aspects of Montessori valuable today such as: education based on psychology rather than a fixed curriculum, education from birth, unlocking intelligence, social development, education for independence, solving social problems through education, when to give children the truth and when fairy tales are appropriate, and the difference between work and play.

A few years ago my granddaughter, who had already attended a Montessori school for two years, asked me, “Who is Montessori.” So my last selection is a book for children!

In just 26 pages, with few words and delightful illustrations, we learn how a young girl in Italy, who wanted to be a doctor when girls were not allowed to study science, had her choices respected by her parents. And how she discovered, from watching children, that learning was more fun when it occurs through toys and games and movement. They learn that her ideas are still helping improve the way children learn in many countries of the world. There is also a 2-page timeline with pictures for the adult to learn more

I could have broken the rules and just listed five books by Caroline Moorehead here. I love her writing; her highly-researched biographies are a joy to read and utterly immersive. I chose A House in the Mountains because it shows me what it’s like to survive the hardscrabble blow-by-blow of daily life under an occupying army, and how you can defeat it. The five women whose lives in the Italian Resistance during WWII she chronicles here are models of courage and creative resistance to tyranny.

After a trip to Florence to see Michelangelo’s earlier works and then David, I struggled to understand the genius, his intense pursuit of excellence, and how his surroundings influenced his art.

The author set me in one of the most fascinating eras of history and made me feel as if I were an apprentice in Michelangelo’s shop. I wept to comprehend the artist and realized that perfection was not a choice for Michelangelo, but a non-negotiable burden.

As I now observe genius in a musician, a scientist, or a mother caring for an autistic child, I give credence to what I learned from Oliver Stone’s portrayal of Michelangelo.

Feisty female protagonists don’t come any better than Catriona Da Vinci. The Renaissance was a dangerous time for women when they were marginalized and bound by societal constructs. Not this lady, though. She was a brilliant, single mother—an alchemist and risk-taker. She devised a scheme that allowed her to be part of her illegitimate son, Leonardo’s life, which was nothing short of genius. She did what she had to do to protect him, no matter the cost to herself. She reminds me of my two amazing sisters and the lengths they would go to be there for their children, and for that—Catriona is my hero.

Ada Boni's culinary bible, Il talismano della felicità, first saw the light of day in 1928, six years after Benito Mussolini had succeeded in uniting Italy's quarrelsome regions under the banner of fascism.

Specifically targeted at the nation's housewives - ordinary folk on whose support El Duce rose to power in 1922 - this collection of nearly a thousand simple, practical traditional recipes for regional dishes became the dictator's favourite cookbook, as it did for generations of Italian women (still does). 

I first came across it on an Italian friend's recommendation while researching European Peasant Cookery and attempting to unravel the complicated traditions of a land that remains as fiercely partisan in the kitchen now as then. 

This book shook up the debate on domestic work and the place of women in society.

Da la Costa and James put forward the radical idea that the working class must include non-waged workers in the home, most of whom are women. This was a revolutionary idea which brought to light how the work of women is overlooked in society and the economy. Wages for housework were their symbolic and material answer to this, and this generated a huge debate about how the modern family was created by the development of capitalism, with the care labour of women being a subsidy to capital.

When I first read this book, I felt as if a whole new way of thinking about women’s work had been opened up. 

I love anything having to do with Italy, particularly in the awful Mussolini era. I think our present era has echoes of that time.

The book has nothing to do with Christ (not a great title) but is gorgeously written and so poignant. I’m fascinated by the take of a Jewish intellectual living in one of the poorest parts of Italy just before WWII.

Because of his opposition to Mussolini, Levi was sentenced to a year in exile in a part of Italy, Basilicata, that was suffering from extreme poverty. His ability to find beauty in such a grim situation served as a lesson for me and reminded me of the 29 months I worked in the former USSR, another bleak place.