McCrindle, Mark, Fell, Ashley, and Sam Buckerfeld. Generation Alpha: Understanding Our Children and Helping Them Thrive. Hachette Australia, 2021.*
*I listened to an audiobook, so I am unable to cite page numbers in this review.
Authors Mark McCrindle and Ashley Fell are social researchers focused on identifying trends and understanding social change. Both have studied generational attributes and helped prepare organizations for generational change in the workplace. Author Sam Buckerfield is a ghost writer.
Like comparable books, Generation Alpha begins with a description of Alpha and the world that shapes it. From those early chapters, the book moves to examining how Alpha behaves as a consumer, how leaders can tap Alpha’s unique traits to create future-ready leaders, and what the authors expect a future led by Alpha will be like.
The descriptive chapter emphasizes the importance of avoiding stereotypes when defining any generation. The authors contend that “significant life events, social markers, and formative technologies” have more impact than almost anything, including parents. They prefer to examine similarities among generations and the threads that connect them instead of focusing on differences that distinguish one from another. They describe the preceding generations first, beginning with the Silent Generation, which the book calls "Builders." The authors’ descriptions of Alpha and its predecessors match other sources’ but include a few unique facts, such as that the first year of Alpha’s birth (2010) marked the first time half the world’s population consisted of Generations Y and Z—the youngest tipping point in recorded human history. Most interesting and useful is a section on which parenting style characterizes each generation, and how each style shaped the subsequent generation. The authors noted a broad shift away from Baby Boomers’ authoritarian model of "children should be seen and not heard” toward Millennials' more affectionate and permissive style.
The book’s second half gives advice for parenting, educating, and leading Alpha. Much of it matches advice offered in Generation Z Unfiltered, though Generation Alpha’s version has a broader scope (it applied to parents, educators, employers) and favors a more permissive style of interacting with the new generation.
The book’s broad approach means its content and recommendations are abstract generalities less useful than Generation Z Unfiltered's. Although the sections that trace generational similarities and interactions are interesting, I wouldn’t recommend this book over any other book about Alpha except as a brief overview for general interest.