Category Archives: Memoir

Review: Life Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism by Ron Suskind

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Memoir, Parenting, , , , ,

life-animatedA Life Animated: A story of heroes, sidekicks and autism
Ron Suskind
Kingswell

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

When the Suskind family moves to a new home, they begin to see startling changes in their youngest son, Owen. He loses the ability to communicate with them and seems to retreat inside himself. The family embarks on a journey to find ways to reconnect with Owen via one of his favorite things: Disney movies.

This is an amazing, truly inspiring story. I’m awed by the courage it must have taken for both Owen and his family to continue pressing forward without giving up, even in moments when field experts were at a loss as to how to help, when specialized programs proved disappointing. Throughout the book, Owen’s father describes his son with love and affection, clearly impressing on readers his value, not just to his family, but as a human being.

For people who don’t personally know someone with an autism diagnosis, I imagine it could be easy to overlook the autistic community. Suskind makes this impossible. Though the book focuses on the family’s experience with their son, there are a lot of references to larger issues faced by families with autistic children or injustices within our system that limit the ability of families to provide much-needed care and assistance. I thought that was a great value, too. Many of those things I simply wasn’t familiar with. For a short time after I graduated, I worked for a behavior analyst extremely well-respected in the field, but that was more than ten years ago now, and I’m grossly under-informed these days.

The Disney references were really fun, and you’ll definitely get a lot more out of the story if you’re familiar with those classic movies, but they’re not the point of the book. The point is that those tales became a vehicle by which a remarkable boy rebuilt a way of communicating with the world around him.

I recommend this book because it’s such a great, triumphant story, and we all need that message, and also because this reminds us that we are all human, all valuable, no matter how we process information.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently. There’s one chapter in which most of the profanity occurs as part of an exposure therapy to help Owen deal with aftermath of a bullying incident.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief references to kissing.

Spiritual Content
The family prepares for and celebrates Owen’s Bar Mitzvah.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Owen’s older brother hosts a high school party which gets a bit out of hand. Lots of alcohol stored in the Suskind’s basement disappears during the party.

Save

Review: Tattooed by Jesus by Bonnie Kae Lentz with Patti Lacy and Angie Reedy

Book Review and Content, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Tattooed by Jesus by Bonnie Kae Lentz
with Patti Lacy and Angie Reedy
CreateSpace

Amazon | Goodreads

Looking back at her life, Bonnie recognizes a hunger for spiritual things. Throughout the course of her mixed up life, she searches for something deeper in relationships with men, experimentation with drugs, and the darker spirit world of the occult. She and her husband Tom journey across the US looking for stability, peace, and hope. Ultimately it is an encounter with Jesus that changes Bonnie’s life forever.

The dark parts of Bonnie’s journey get pretty dark. She’s witnessed some brutal things and though the narrative is gentle, reading the memories evokes deep feeling. Yet it’s a story that so many who lived through the same decades will recognize. Their children will hear echoes of parents’ stories within it.

While many memoirs relay a valuable story, Lentz’s tale also tells it well. Not only are the events relayed in a meaningful way, but the people around Bonnie come to life in each scene. Strong narrative pulls one girl’s recollections together and stitches them into a more meaningful, focused whole. True peace, Lentz reveals, can only come through faith in and relationship with a loving God.

Language Content
Heavy profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
Bonnie very briefly tells of being molested as a girl. She’s specific about what happened but not graphic. It’s brief but intense and may be difficult for some readers. Later, she discusses her own sexual journey – no details, but mention of encounters with boyfriends, lovers and her husband. See violence section for more info.

Spiritual Content
Bonnie feels a pull toward spiritual things throughout the course of her life. At one point, she experiments with some witchcraft with two female roommates. Those experiences become really negative. Eventually she becomes a Christian and is moved to make several big life changes as well as finding her internal self irreversibly changed.

Violence
Bonnie grows up with an alcoholic father who becomes pretty monstrous when he’s drunk. She listens to him brutalize her mother and rape her. (We realize what he’s doing through his ignoring her refusal and some references to sounds that indicate sex, things like that.)

Drug Content
Bonnie’s father is an alcoholic. She begins experimenting with drugs herself, and particularly develops a fondness for marijuana, which she smokes often over a number of years.

Review and Reminiscence: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Memoir, Nonfiction, , , ,

The Hiding Place
Corrie Ten Boom with John Sherrill and Elizabeth Sherrill
Chosen Books

Amazon | Goodreads

Nazi occupation during World War II changes watchmaker Corrie Ten Boom’s life. Her deep empathy and faith lead her to become a central participant in the underground movement to protect Jews and others on the run from the Nazi government. Corrie and her family know that at any time, they may be captured and sent to the very camps they work to save others from. Still, with every new challenge, Corrie and her sister Betsie cling to their faith in God and look to Him for the path they should follow. What results is a moving, often miraculous story of a woman who not only survived terrible conditions, but who continued to minister healing to the hearts and souls of those around her – be they Jew, Gentile or Nazi.

I had wanted to post my review of this story on Mother’s Day or on Monday, May 11, to honor my mom’s birthday. The Hiding Place is her favorite book. I remember her reading this tale to my sister and me when we were young – probably only a little older than my daughter is now. I remember even then being overwhelmed by Corrie’s commitment to serve others. She’s so real about the struggles within her own heart, too – fear of prison, the struggle between taking action to protect herself and her sister versus selflessly giving to others in all circumstances. Her life story reminds us that each of us can make a difference in the lives of those around us. That courage and selfless love are available to anyone – provided they learn to live by faith.

This may have been the first account I’d ever read growing up that was about World War II, so it’s been a special story to me, too, in that my other reading and learning about that time period always bears echoes of Corrie’s story. When my daughter gets just a little bit older, I am excited to share the story of the Ten Boom family, their faith and courage, with her, as my mom did with me.

Language Content
No profanity.

Sexual Content
Corrie and her sister are forced to walk naked before soldiers upon their entrance to a concentration camp.

Spiritual Content
Corrie’s Christian faith sustains her and her sister through Nazi occupation of Holland and imprisonment in a concentration camp. She and her family frequently pray with one another and share the Bible, which they count as their most precious possession.

Violence
Corrie is beaten by a Nazi soldier – description is brief, not very detailed. She hears her sister also beaten and witnesses others who’ve been brutalized by soldiers. There’s not a lot of violent description.

Drug Content
None.

Take a Virtual Tour of the Ten Boom Museum
In looking for cover images, I stumbled onto a web site that offers a virtual tour of the Ten Boom Museum and shows some pictures of the family and shop where she lived. (It looks like possibly there are some clips from the 1975 movie too?) Click here to take the tour and find out more.