Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science (7th edition)

摘要

One of the effects of growing old is that of suddenly noticing that acquaintances from your youthful days are growing old as well, though still somehow remaining recognizable. That scrawny ginger-bearded lad whose sole ambition was to become a New Orleans style traditional jazz clarinettist is now a bald clean-shaven emeritus professor of social administration at a university which did not even exist when we were students. One or two, alas, have died off along the way, but the one characteristic that most of the survivors share is that they are very much stouter than they used to be. One or two of us have managed to avoid this: I still have my last pair of school trousers, and they still fit me, but, in general, you cannot get as many of us into a Mini car or a telephone box as you could half-a-century ago. The same, very noticeably, goes for reference books. A few that I had thought were destined to become classics have deceased, a few have not kept themselves up-to-date for some years and are looking distinctly doddery, but the survivors have noticeably made up for any loss of youthful vigour by a growth in girth and a growth at least in gravitas if not actually in wisdom. What used to be a couple of slender volumes lurking unobtrusively in a corner of the reference collection now sprawls solemnly over half a shelf.