The perceptive and beguiling tale of a young girl's development as only her father can see it Chosen as one of the 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years by  Slate  Like most biographies, Brian Hall's charming account of his daughter Madeleine begins at her birth. But unlike most biographies, it concludes with her third birthday. Along the way, it describes Madeleine's intriguing transition from infant solipsism through toddler self-absorption to a small person's sociability. Drawing on the same subtle humor and eye for detail that imbued  I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company , his acclaimed novel of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Hall gives us a look at Madeleine's milestones: her first laugh, first words, first tantrum, and brings it all to life from the inside out. By speculating on his daughter's perceptions and experience as she grows, Hall gives us candid and informed insights into the evolution of language, attachments and separations, and a youngster's curiosity and fear. What emerges is a portrait of growing consciousness in action, a universal voyage whose every revelation and frustration is captured with stunning detail and intimacy. Praise for  Madeleine's World : "Even nonparents will be fascinated by  Madeleine’s World  for the ways it delves deep into the thought patterns and imaginative leaps readers half-remember from their own childhoods; for parents, the book—in its insistence that to  pay attention  is to love—can be almost unbearably moving." — Slate , "The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years"  "A most welcome book in a society that loudly celebrates the sentimental notion of family while paying scant attention to the hearts and minds of the messy, ecstatic, sometimes ugly and endlessly eventful lives of the children who actually make families possible . . . Hall stuns with his observational powers and emotional truth . . . [and] succeeds dazzingly at making his daughter and the toddler sensibility come alive." — Los Angeles Times "This wonderful 'biography' of a baby manages to avoid almost every cliché in the child-development handbook. Using fresh, revealing details, novelist Hall keeps his wits—and wit—about him . . . This is an enthralling journey into a baby's dramatic world." — Entertainment Weekly "A delightful, resonant account of a journey we have all taken but, for the most part, forgotten . . . Hall recreates the gains and losses of growing up in all their bittersweet glory . . . By investing Madeleine's tiny, often comic struggles with so much meaning, Hall in turn confers an enormous dignity on all adults who undertake the humble, relentless task of being there for small children." — The Cleveland Plain Dealer "Hall brims with imaginative and convincing interpretations of his daughter's every eye-movement from birth onwards, his antennae sharpened—but never biased—by love . . . One re-experiences the world through Madeleine's eyes, and her closing words about death are so full of human hope I cried." — The Observer  (London) Brian Hall is the author of the novels  I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company ,  Fall of Frost,  and  The Saskiad,  in addition to three works of nonfiction. His journalism has appeared in publications such as  Time ,  The New Yorker , and  The New York Times Magazine . He lives in Ithaca, New York. Madeleine's World A Biography of a Three-Year-Old By Brian Hall Penguin Books Copyright © 2004 Brian Hall All right reserved. ISBN: 0142004480 Chapter One We knew almost nothing about her before she was born, not even her sex, so we must have referred to her as "it," although I can't imagine that now. She was quiet when Pamela moved, and active when Pamela was still, particularly after we had crawled into bed. Perhaps the motion comforted her, as Pamela's rocking or my pacing would later, and her kicks and somersaults as we lay in bed were protests. Or perhaps the motion cowed her, and our bedtime was a chance to be bold. She would also stir, sometimes violently, when I played the piano or sang with my lips pressed against Pamela's stomach. The same doubt assailed us here: was this pleasure or indignation? Or was there no more feeling involved than when a pupil constricts at a bright light? Fetuses often suck their thumbs, or their whole hands, sometimes so hard they raise a blister. Is this because they need comforting? (Do they suck their thumbs when their fathers sing to them?) If so, why do they seek it in this way when the primeval comforter surely is food, and nourishment has always come to them through their navels? Or are they merely practicing, strengthening the sucking action for the day when they will need it? Do fetuses dream? If not, why do they have REM sleep? If so, what could they be dreaming of? Their thumbs, perhaps, theperfect shape of them. Or the rhythmic boom of the cosmos, the first music of this first sphere. Or a muffled dog's bark and the mother's adrenalin