I had to read this as a first assignment for my Montessori teacher training program. I'm passionate about the Montessori method and the contributions it has made to child care and education. This book is kinda awful though. The breathless adoration and reverence for Dr. Montessori is exhausting and off putting. She was an important person but also was surely a flawed human. The writing style is very old fashioned and dense. There's lots of flowery language that I imagine would make this book inaccessible to some ESL readers.

The book is also painfully out of date in its politics and worldview. Dr. Montessori is favorably compared to Columbus (an explorer "discovering" new frontiers, etc). Significant parts of Dr. Montessori's life considered to be "unpalatable" (like the child she had outside of marriage) are left out. There is also language and concepts that are classist, ableist, misogynist, etc. I know social tolerances for these things continue to evolve and I think there can still be value in problematic (harmful?) texts like this one. However, for an overall better reading experience, I'd recommend one of the more modern books about Dr. Montessori and her work.