The Baby In The Mirror | Granta

  • Published: 07/10/2010
  • ISBN: 9781847084019
  • Granta Books
  • 288 pages

The Baby In The Mirror

Charles Fernyhough

For Charles Fernyhough, the birth of his daughter Athena was an opportunity to re-evaluate much of what he had learned as a researcher in developmental psychology. Drawing on the detailed notes he made during her infancy, Fernyhough uses Athena’s story to explain how a child’s mind develops before the age of three, tapping into a parent’s wonder at the processes of psychological development in an engaging, child-centred way. It is written with a father’s tenderness and a novelist’s empathy and style.

[A] tender, beautifully written account ... Fernyhough provides an accessible, jargon-free guide to the basis and development of language, consciousness and autonomy

The Scotsman

A triumph of informed imagination and a startling testament of love

Sunday Telegraph

Fernyhough's source material is diverse and eclectic ... a hymn to a child from a loving father

Sunday Herald

The Author

Charles Fernyhough studied developmental psychology at Cambridge University and is now a part-time lecturer in psychology at Durham University. He lives in County Durham with his wife and two children. He is the author of a novel, The Auctioneer, and more than twenty-five research articles. His fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including New Writing 11 and New Writing 14. He has been the recipient of several awards, from, among others, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors.

More about the author →