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In a companion volume to their highly acclaimed book Overcoming the Odds, Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith continue their longitudinal study of approximately five hundred men and women who were born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. A third of these individuals had been considered "at risk" because of birth complications, parental mental illness, family dysfunction, and adverse early conditions such as poverty. Werner and Smith examine the long-term impact of these influences on the individuals' later adaptation to life.

Drawing on data collected by a team of psychologists, pediatricians, social workers, and public health nurses across four decades, Werner and Smith chronicle the development of these men and women from birth to midlife: infancy, early and middle childhood, late adolescence, and early and middle adulthood. Their book focuses on protective factors within the individual, the extended family, and the community that allowed most of the men and women to be successful and to be satisfied with their lives by age forty. Most important, the authors document the remarkable resilience and capacity for recovery displayed by the majority of these baby boomers, who approached middle age as competent, confident, and caring adults.

Journeys from Childhood to Midlife highlights key turning points in the third and fourth decades of life, and shows why more women than men succeeded in overcoming the odds. The work addresses the policy implications of the research and the need to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of current intervention programs for children.

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CHOICE Review

Werner (Univ. of California, Davis) and Smith (a clinical psychologist) trace the journey of 698 people born in 1955 in Kauai, Hawaii, as they mature from birth to midlife. The authors focus on individual resilience and on the ability of high-risk individuals to "bounce back" after a difficult youth. Looking at support available to at-risk youth, they assess the factors that foster resilience and shape the expectations of these individuals. The authors find specific "turning points" leading to positive trajectories in adulthood and identify individual and external protective factors. A brief historical context sets the stage for the "ordinary" journey of this group of baby boomers. Werner and Smith show how one subgroup of their sample overcame perinatal stress, poverty, parental psychopathology, and family discord to become competent and caring adults. They then discuss how those who experienced serious problems (teenage pregnancy, poor mental health, delinquency, learning disabilities) in childhood and/or adolescence made their journeys. The authors summarize long-term effects of risk and of protective factors, and discuss links between individual dispositions and quality of adaptation in adulthood. This is a very readable narrative account, thanks to the authors' decision to place all tables, figures, and statistical information in an appendix. Highly recommended; all levels. R. B. Stewart Jr. Oakland University

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A developmental psychologist, Emmy E. Werner is Research Professor (Human Development) at the University of California, Davis. Ruth S. Smith is a licensed clinical psychologist on the island of Kauai. Werner and Smith are the coauthors of several books based on the Kauai study, including Vulnerable but Invincible.