For both teachers and parents, the implications of James Britton's now classic work are profound. Language and learning is the outcome of Britton's close observations as researcher, teacher, and parent of how children shape their individual visions of the world.

Drawing in the theories of many thinkers, including Piaget and Vygotsky, the author provides a rich and moving account of how children learn to talk and the role of speech in cognitive development and in coping with the challenges of adolescence. In James Britton's words, "We cannot afford to underestimate the value of language as a means of organizing and consolidating our accumulated experience, or its value as a means of interacting with people and objects to create experience..."