This text offers students an innovative, non-encyclopaedic introduction to the study of child development. Drawing on their extensive experience as teachers and researchers, Robert Siegler, Judy DeLoache and Nancy Eisenberg emphasize the fundamental principles and enduring themes underlying children's development and focus on key research that is most reflective of the field in 2002. The result is a lively, cutting edge picture of how children develop that does not overwhelm the student with transitory detail.