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Book reviews : The point of words: children's understanding of metaphor and irony

Overall, this is a serviceable but not authoritative text. Pellegrini has ambitiously attempted the coverage of a psychology textbook, which detracts from his main thesis. In consequence, there is much description and too little reflection or analysis. The hazards and complexities of ANY kind of child study are glossed over, particularly in relation to child language measures, although the brief section on programme evaluation makes some important points about the need to extract the most effective elements of an intervention programme for future planning. I felt a lack of recognition of how adult ’images’ of children as learners can and usually do draw on divergent influences, which are not so easily compartmentalized as the book suggests. Perhaps the most important question to be asked about this book is whether, having read it, a would-be student of children could confidently set about designing a research project: I fear not.