Precocious children are nothing new; they’ve been around for as long as there have been embittered adults to be annoyed by them because of their infuriating innocence, and because they haven’t yet ...

While every generation produces its share of precocious children, no era, before or since, seems to have been so obsessed with them. The recent advent of intelligence testing, which allowed ...

The image is a familiar trope: a precocious child, bright-eyed and talented, beaming under the brilliant lights of a movie set. The media attention is intoxicating, the success seems limitless. Yet, ...