It's All in Your Head: A Guide to Understanding Your Brain and Boosting Your Brain Power

by Susan L. Barrett

An "owner's manual" on the brain, written especially for kids, this upbeat, engaging book is for anyone who wants to know more about the possibilities, mysteries, and capabilities of the brain. It explains how the brain evolved; what the different parts do; 20 ways to become more creative; how diet, exercise, and sleep affect the brain; how to maximize brain potential; and more.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1985

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It tries to cover too many topics and does all of them poorly. Some of the information is out and out wrong. The author makes value judgements that made me wince.

[Gail Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book written for children, explains basic concepts and uses of different part of brains. In my opinion it makes for easy, interesting reading for an adult as well.

[Landon Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It's all in Your Head" is a non-fiction book written by Susan L. Barrett. This book addresses many topics about the human brain.
The author's purpose in this book was to inform the reader about the human brain. Susan also kept the reader entertained, but her main point was to inform. The book included many tips and amusing pictures for the reader to contemplate. This book is aimed towards middle to high school students, or anyone wanting to learn the basics of the brain. The author covered the important parts of the brain thoroughly and added appropriate facts at the right time to keep the reader intrigued. For example, on page 17, she stated that, "A message travels along the length of an axon at 100 miles per hour." This is interesting fact that keeps the reader wanting to read more.
The theme of the book is to understand the brain and how to effectively boost the brain's power. The book provides the reader with many tips to help your brain improve. There are tons of pictures to get your brain thinking and creative examples to show you the power of the brain. For instance, a neat example she used was on page 65, where it showed how effects can be felt on the body even if they are not happening. For example, the book stated, "You take a big, juicy lemon out of the refrigerator, cut it into quarters, bring one quarter to your mouth...and sink your teeth into it." The point was to get your salivary glands going, which is very captivating. The book contains lots of information on ways to boost brain power.
This book is an exposition, which is an analysis of a topic to bring about clarity on that specific topic. Susan did just that. She covered each of the brain's parts and how they function. On page 16, it claims up that brain cells do not make you smarter, which cleared up the misunderstanding that some may have. Although this book is an exposition, it is not all facts. There are lots of activities to try and experiment. This keeps the book from getting boring, inasmuch as most students or people do not enjoy reading just facts.
The book was an enjoyable read and contained lots of information to be learned. This book is for understanding the basics of the brain, not an advanced and in-depth explanation of the brain. This book is great for juveniles and is a very fast read. The book was always engaging the reader, which I liked greatly.Not to many points lost my interest. There is nothing I disliked about the book. Therefore, I would not make any changes to it. The book is fine as is, but I do not recommended it for anyone that wants advanced knowledge about the brain. I have never read another book like this one. Overall, I liked reading the book and loved learning all the facts that I did.

[Allex Langley · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s All in Your Head: A Guide to Understanding Your Brain and Boosting Your Brain Power by Susan L. Barrett is a wonderful book about brains and how they work. It informs the reader how to use and control the small lump of power located inside one’s skull. The author provides information on the origins and evolution of the brain, what each part does, and the different types of intelligence. Barrett discusses that intelligence is not measured by grades or tests. In fact, “An IQ score (or a percentile score) doesn’t even scratch the surface of your capabilities.” Intelligence is a person’s ability to comprehend and react to a situation in the best way logically possible to that person. This is just one of the topics Barrett touches on.

Throughout the book the author provides useful tips about boosting one’s brain. One way Barrett wrote about was ridding oneself of mental blocks by use of divergent thinking. Barrett inspired readers to think of different ways to solve a problem such as, “How many uses can you think of for a wooden spoon?” The immediate answer is to eat with, but divergent thinking suggests the reader expands his/her thinking to include unlikely answers, like using the aforementioned spoon as a hat, to stretch and strengthen one’s brain.

This example shows a bit of Susan Barrett’s style. She is very conversational in tone, and she writes as though she is speaking to kids. Some of her sentences are fragmented for the conversational effect so reading feels like hearing a presentation. Barrett also writes in a way that provokes the reader to think about what is written instead of just skimming over the information. “How many thought do you take in during a normal day? 50? 200? 5,000? 10,000? Maybe 50 seems too low and 10,000 seems too high. Surprise: You actually take in billions of thoughts within each 24-hour period.” Reading truly feels like hearing or conversing with someone. This makes the task of reading easy for younger students, the target audience.

In effect, It’s All in Your Head by Susan Barrett is a great book for the young neuroscientist or anyone who wishes to control his/her brain. Though the book is now slightly outdated, it has a good amount of useful information that is still used today.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

For children this would be a great start to understanding the finite brain. For an adult, more of a waste of time.