Born To Win by Dr. Kevin Leman

I am a first born girl. And apparently, there are social clubs for people like me. Unfortunately, the First Born Girl's Social Club is only in America. (Maybe I should see if I could start a Japan charter? Nah, I have too much on my hands as it is). But this is just one of the interesting things I learnt in Born to Win by Kevin Lehman. It's a book for us firstborn kids, but if you've ever wondered why your oldest sibling was _______ (I'm sure you have many words to fill in this blank), or you are an only child (apparently, only childs are very close to firstborns in character), you should pick up this book.

This book is divided into eleven chapters, and it looks at things from "Who's on First?" (Do you know it's possible to have more than one firstborn child in the family?, "The Firstborn Personality" (The following chapter explains why). and how to use this to your advantage at home, school, work, etc. Personally, I thought the first six chapters explaining the personality of a firstborn was the most interesting.

What I like about this book is that it's extremely easy to understand. Even my senior, who admits that she normally can't understand this kind of books, found it easy and interesting. There are quizzes to make things interesting, and it really does help you understand more about yourself. The only parts where I was a little bored would be the later chapters, because it was talking to the firstborn adults.

However, I think the book is worth reading, if only for the first six chapters. I recommended it to my firstborn best friend, and it helped her realise why her sister and her were treated differently, and why they had such different personalities. That was, to the two of us, a big deal because we had grown up wondering why our younger siblings appeared to be spoilt while we got the rod.

For the record, we do get on well with our siblings, but when we were much younger (and even now), we always wondered why our younger sister (the one born a year after us), was our total opposite. For example, I'm generally un-athletic, my younger sister ends up being the team captain of different sports team (my youngest sister is a whole different topic though). I love reading, until recently, my sister didn't have much interest (thankfully, that's changing). The book helped me realise that because we were so similar in age, and were in the same school, she had to find a way to differentiate herself from me.

I think this is a wonderful book. It's a must-read for firstborn children. For the other birth-order kids, you can take a look if you want to understand your older sibling (we're touched), but if you're looking for more information about your place in the birth order, his more general book "The New Birth Order Book" might be more to your liking.