PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewChild prodigies are exotic creatures, each unique and inexplicable. But they have a couple of things in common, as Ann Hulbert’s meticulous new book, Off the Charts, makes clear … Hulbert attempts to capture the complicated lives of child prodigies without descending into voyeurism or caricature. She has tried to ‘listen hard for the prodigies’ side of the story,’ to her great credit. This is an arduous task, and it sometimes shows in the writing, which can be stilted in its reliance on quotes and documentation … The most vivid section of the book comes at the end, when Hulbert reunites with the musical prodigy Marc Yu, a decade after first interviewing him at age 6...Yu’s story reinforces one of Hulbert’s central, if unsatisfying, findings: Children’s needs change.
