Born to Buy - by Juliet B Schor (Paperback)

About the Book

With a new Afterword by the author, this groundbreaking book offers the first hard research data on the consequences of turning young children into consumers.

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Overworked American, an illuminating and well-researched account on the consequences of turning younger and younger children into consumers.

Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere--in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey research and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor, New York Times bestselling author of The Overworked American, examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children." Ads and their messages about sex, drugs, and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this groundbreaking and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. She argues that the emotional and social well-being of our children is at stake.

Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Born to Buy is a major contribution to our understanding of a contemporary trend and its effects on the culture.

Review Quotes

"Born to Buy is so grounded in appalling data about both kids and advertising companies, it has the effect of making even the most TV-and-advertising-wary parents among us realize that we haven't been half vigilant enough."
-- Amy Bloom, O, The Oprah Magazine

"A wake-up call."
-- Los Angeles Times

"An artfully argued, important expose."
-- BusinessWeek

About the Author

Juliet B. Schor is the award-winning author of The Overworked American, The Overspent American, True Wealth, and After the Gig. A recognized expert on consumerism, economics, and family studies, she teaches at Boston College and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.