An "Honest Abe's NLP Emporium" Book Review - Reproduced with permission.
Written and Produced by Andy Bradbury; author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", "NLP for Business Success", etc.

In the brief Preface, Loeschen explains:

"The opportunity for people to learn [Virginia] Satir's methods by watching her at work or by experiencing her workshops was lost with her death.  Because of this, I decided to write The Magic of Satir.

It is the premise of this work that much of what Satir did can be successfully learned and used by others.  ...  You may be surprised to learn that her philosophy and many of her skills are applicable to working with individuals as well as couples and families.

Having said that, the author does include a number of quotes that show very clearly how closely the two schools of thought are related, as in the following examples:

"At the moment we do something, it's the best we know how to do or we would do something different."

"So you are feeling scared about speaking up?  How are you scaring yourself?"

"You are encouraged by your progress.  What specifically are you doing that is pleasing you?"

"I'm wondering if the two of you would be willing to close your eyes and see yourself being this new way with each other the next time you encounter a difference?"

An "Honest Abe's NLP Emporium" Book Review - Reproduced with permission.
Written and Produced by Andy Bradbury; author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", "NLP for Business Success", etc.

Those who have read Satir's other key work - Conjoint Family Therapy, a remarkably dry and pedestrian text - may be wary of letting themselves in for more of the same.  Fear not!  The New Peoplemaking is as different from the earlier book as poached salmon is different from fish fingers.

Originally published in 1972 as Peoplemaking (which itself sold 700,000 copies), The New Peoplemaking was released in 1988, an updated, revised and expanded version of the earlier book.
On the face of it, Satir was simply writing a book about parenting:

"The family is the context in which a person ... develops.  And the adults in charge are the peoplemakers."
(Italics as in the original)

"I have learned from my work, and learning opens up new possibilities and new directions for discovery.  It is now clear to me that the family is a microcosm of the world.  To understand the world, we can study the family: issues such as power, intimacy, autonomy, trust and communication skills are vital parts underlying how we live in the world."

Read this book because of the light it throws on the development of NLP.
Read this book because it offers a penetrating yet empathetic study of the very foundations of modern society.
Read the book because it may help you to develop your parenting skills.
Read the book because it may give you better understanding of yourself.
Read the book for any reason you like - just as long as you read it.
Very highly recommended * * * * * * *

An "Honest Abe's NLP Emporium" Book Review - Reproduced with permission.
Written and Produced by Andy Bradbury; author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", "NLP for Business Success", etc.

Part 1 (140+ pages) is the annotated transcript of a demonstration session with a family of two parents and 5 children.
Part 2 (100+ pages) is a general review of Virginia Satir's ideas, the beliefs and values that underpinned her approach, and so on, authored by Michele Baldwin.

If you aren't particularly familiar with Satir's work and you're exploring her role as one of the key contributors to NLP (and, I suspect, to 'Core Transformation'), or are simply interested in her legacy to the field of Family Therapy, then I thoroughly recommend this book.
I would, however, point you to Baldwin’s suggestions on how to approach the text:

1. Read Part 2 first, then go back and read Part 1;
   
2. The first time through Part 1, read the left-hand pages only (that is the transcripyt of the video) to get an overall view of how the session develops.  Then read it through again, including the commentary on the right-hand pages.

If you already have a good grasp of Satir's ideas and techniques then I suspect that you will find very little that is new here.
We are told, on the back cover blurb:

"For the first time we have a description of many of Virginia Satir's basic concepts and techniques including the Seed Model, Family Reconstruction and Parts Parties."

"Rather than writing a step-by-step description of the techniques, I have explained the context in which they are used and what they try to accomplish."

An "Honest Abe's NLP Emporium" Book Review - Reproduced with permission.
Written and Produced by Andy Bradbury; author of "Develop Your NLP Skills", "NLP for Business Success", etc.

"The book is a collection of Virginia's sayings - or as I prefer to call them, her 'secrets'.  Virginia discovered many of the universal principals of how and why people behave the way they do. and she shared these during her trainings.  The opportunity to gain her 'secrets' firsthand was lost with her death, so I decided to share the ones I have collected through this book."

The sayings, none longer than a sentence or two, are grouped under five headings:

1. Families (27 quotes)
2. Self Worth (10)
3. Communication (12)
4. Feelings (10)
5. Change (13)

"You don't have to completely let go of one thing to gain something new.  We can add rather than discard."

"How we got to be a certain way is important for our understanding, but it doesn't fix us."

to the totally unoriginal and banal

"The only real certainty in life is change."