Product Description

The children's gate is an entrance to Central Park that leads to the playground. Gopnik explores that entrance in metaphor and experience as he recounts his family's return from Paris to New York a seemingly secure, almost oddly child-friendly New York in the fall of 2000. Gopnik describes not a city but an extended urban family, and a home charmed by the civilization of childhood. It's a charm that is simultaneously protect from, challenged by, and even shaped around the event that is soon to follow. By turns elegant and exultant, jubilant and poignant, THROUGH THE CHILDREN'S GATE is a loving portrait of a family and their city.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26272 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-28
• Released on: 2006-10-05
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From Publishers Weekly
Back from living in Paris with his wife and two kids, as chronicled charmingly in Paris to the Moon, Gopnik, a writer for the New Yorker, records in his tidy, writerly and obsessive fashion his family's relocation to the city of his earliest professional aspiration: New York. No longer the grim, decrepit hell of the 1970s, New York of the new century has become a children's city, infused by a "new paternal feeling," and doting father Gopnik is delighted to walk through the Children's Gate of Central Park to relive the romance of childhood. His 20 various essays meander over topics dear to the hearts of New York parents, such as learning to be appropriately Jewish ("A Purim Story"); working with the ad hoc committee called Artists and Anglers at his son's hypercaring private school, on methods of flight for the production of Peter Pan; and his four-year-old daughter's imaginary playmate, Charlie Ravioli, who is simply too booked to play with her. The less structured series of essays on Thanksgiving are most pleasing and read like diaries, ranging from the rage over noise to the safety of riding buses. Gopnik conveys in his mannered, occasionally gilded prose that New York still represents a kind of childlike hope—"for something big to happen." 150,000 copy first printing. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Whether discussing the death of his daughter's fish or a visit to his psychiatrist, Adam Gopnik is a master of mining big revelations from small observations. But surprise! It's his narrative skills, not his literary skills, that steal the show in his new audiobook. As a narrator, Gopnik uses timing, tone, and coloring to bring alive this intimate and bittersweet collection of essays about family life in New York pre- and post-9/11. Gopnik, a self-confessed ham, is not afraid to dive into the voices, adding character and tone to, among others, his psypchiatrist, his children, and even local radio sports commentators. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Gopnik's previous book, the best-selling Paris to the Moon (2000), drew its material in large part from his "Paris Journal" column appearing in the New Yorker. That book shared his and his family's experiences living in the City of Light for five years. In 2000 he and they moved back to New York, and in his new collection of essays, he demonstrates anew how, despite tackling two of the world's greatest and oft-written-about cities, he has staked out his own mastery of the literature of place. As Gopnik ranges over contemporary life in the Big Apple, bringing into his purview and commentary such specific topics as raising children in that vastly busy environment and indulging in one of the city's favorite preoccupations (namely, consulting a psychotherapist), he lets there be no mistake that these pieces are literate, serious in his analysis of social issues (even though he can be funny at the same time), deeply thought out and well reasoned, and arise from not only an immaculate writerly talent but also a sharp ability to understand why people, in particular places, do peculiar things. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Effortlessy funny, A Gem.
Regular readers of The New Yorker magazine will already be familiar with the wonderful writing of Adam Gopnik. Those of you who are new to his writing are in for a treat with this gem, Through the Children's Gate. Gopnik ruminates about his family, his adopted city and life in general with a great deal of wit and charm. He is insightful without ever being arch and he portrays the intelligence of his children without making them seem coy or precocious. He is effortlessy funny - his three year old invents an imaginary friend who is too busy to play with her - but there are moments of real emotion as well. This a companion piece to his earlier book Paris to the Moon which chronicles his family life during their five years in Paris. From beginning to end this is a fabulous read.