I have a book called "Smart Boys" and I plan to show my kid when he starts wanting to discuss smartness. It's a very broad coverage of giftedness, gifted research, how gifted kids from fifty years ago turned out (I know, just use your own family's stories), but it's got some good talking points. Some of the brightest people fifty years ago, everybody thought they were going to be world leaders, grew up to be middle management. That's worth discussing. A lot of people make comments in front of smart kids about them changing the world some day, you know. The book shows that research changed the way people thought about gifted people in just the last century, people used to say "early ripe, early rot", or else that smart kids would burn out early. A researcher named Terman had to prove that gifted people weren't only pasty stereotypes by studying tanned, outdoor, California gifted children. In other words the book has compiled all the trivia factoids about what people think about giftedness. I will be sharing this book with my son. There's a similar book anout gifted girls I plan to buy for my daughter.
