Book Review: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Twenty-five years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo—a credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Now, seven million copies later, Fulghum returns to the book that was embraced around the world. He has written a new preface and twenty-five essays, which add even more potency to a common, though no less relevant, piece of wisdom: that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities.
Here Fulghum engages us with musings on life, death, love, pain, joy, sorrow, and the best chicken-fried steak in the continental U.S.A. The little seed in the Styrofoam cup offers a reminder about our own mortality and the delicate nature of life . . . a spider who catches (and loses) a full-grown woman in its web one fine morning teaches us about surviving catastrophe . . . the love story of Jean-Francois Pilatre and his hot air balloon reminds us to be brave and unafraid to “fly” . . . life lessons hidden in the laundry pile . . . magical qualities found in a box of crayons . . . hide-and-seek vs. sardines—and how these games relate to the nature of God. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is brimming with the very stuff of life and the significance found in the smallest details.
In the years that have passed since the first publication of this book that touched so many with its simple, profound wisdom, Robert Fulghum has had some time to ponder, to reevaluate, and to reconsider. And here are those fresh thoughts on classic topics, right alongside the wonderful new essays.
Perhaps in today’s chaotic, more challenging world, these essays on life will resonate even deeper—as readers discover how universal insights can be found in ordinary events.
Robert Fulghum is a best-selling author, even though he never intended to be. In 1985, his short essay won the International Refrigerator Award, the Office Bulletin Board Sweepstakes, the Send-A-Copy-To-Your-Mom Trophy, and even the My-Rabbi-Read-It-In-His-Sermon Prize. He turned the essay into a book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, which has sold seven million copies in at least 39 countries.
Fulghum says that what we learn in kindergarten will come up repeatedly in our lives, and we will be tested over the years to see if we understand what we have learned. He says that we will wrestle with questions of right and wrong and good and bad across the course of our lives. And it will all come back to when we were very young in kindergarten.
When asked what he does for a living, Fulghum replies that he is a philosopher. In his life, he has been a working cowboy, folksinger, IBM salesman, professional artist, parish minister, bartender, teacher of drawing and painting, and father. He has written seven books and in October 2003, published a revised 15th anniversary edition of All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten with 25 new stories. There are currently more than 15 million copies of Fulghum’s books in print, published in 27 languages in 93 countries.