PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksShe brings her considerable powers, both as an observer of objects and spaces and as a writer of sentences, to The Design of Childhood, which provides history and commentary on toys, houses, schools, playgrounds, and cities—organized in that order, from the small to the large, like the nesting dolls that my two-year-old daughter can’t get enough of ... Throughout The Design of Childhood, she looks just this closely at a range of exceptional objects and spaces—from Lego blocks to walkable Rotterdam neighborhoods—that designers have made. And the discussion of exceptional models, of course, makes you reflect on your own childhood—which was, I will guess, unexceptional ... Though Lange invites us to examine the ingenuity and sensitivity that goes into the best designs and study the exceptional models, it is possible for something else to slip in—a resentment that it can’t be this way for everyone ... Here, Lange seems to argue. This. These are the tools—no, the toys—that we can use to grow up into the people we most want to be.
