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Friday 56 and FASD Day

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This is my second week trying out this cute blogger meme for book bloggers. Freda informed me that the meme is actually from http://www.storytimewithtonya.blogspot.com/ Sorry Tanya for last week’s mistake. My book is strangely nearby and I have read it multiple times as it is considered the bible for those of us who parent children with FASD Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Damaged Angels by Bonnie Buxton, a well known Canadian journalist, is the story of what happened when they adopted a child they didn’t know had FASD. FASD is a physical disability caused by a biological mother’s prenatal alcohol consumption. This is a bittersweet and sad tale of the struggles they endured, physical, financial and emotional, and the sad life of Cleo, their child by adoption. As FASD awareness day is right around the corner I have been looking through this book again and as luck would have it I have a copy right here. None for nine is the motto. There is no safe amount of alcohol, no safe time and so safe type of alcohol to consume during pregnancy.

 So these are the rules:

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.

* Turn to page 56.

* Find the fifth sentence.

* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.

* Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Damaged Angels excerpt: (much of page 56 is a list of characteristics that Buxton noted referred to in the news in court stories – the obvious inference here is that many criminals sitting in jails today are sitting there as a direct result of their disability going undiagnosed. FASD is often undiagnosed because it is so difficult to get an accurate history of birth mother’s drinking patterns while pregnant.)
This is the list on 56:
slight build, receeding jaw, unresponsive, quiet, seeming lack of remorse, model prisoner, learning disabled, ADHD, unemployed, welfare recipient, violent rages, alcoholic, addict, school dropout, repeat offender, alcoholic parents or broken home, native background, adopted, foster child.
This is a paragraph I like: “We are all interconnected. Our lives profoundly influenced by small events that may have happened years ago, involving people we may never know. Back in April 1979, a woman addicted to alcohol, whom I have never met, became pregnant with her third child, continued to drink through her pregnancy _and whirled my life into an unending orbit of love, grief, despair, and hope.”
Damaged Angels is a great read and a beautiful memoir about this tragic, largely preventable disorder. Buy it and give it to someone you know who plans to get pregnant.

Friday 56: Book Bloggers Meme

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This is a Friday meme just for books from Freda’s Voice, a lovely Canadian blogger. To participate you are supposed to:
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Select a teaser sentence from page 56 in the book and copy it to your blog.
3. Post the instructions.
Here’s my sentence from Sima’s Undergarments For Women: A Novel  by Ilana Stanger-Ross. I am reviewing this one right now.

“The doorbell chimed, and Sima turned to see a middle-aged woman with enormous breasts enter the shop, encumbered by shopping bags. “Rochelle,” Sima called, for once amused rather than annoyed to note that though she’d been fitting Rochelle for years, still she always showed up hanging out of some demi-cup.”                                        

The iConnected Parent

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So what happens to helicopter parents and their children when the kids go to college? Well, that’s precisely the question Barbara K. Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore set out to answer in the new book The iConnected Parent: Staying Connected to Your College Kids( and Beyond)While Letting Them Grow Up. It’s an interesting question and a growing phenomenon – parents who are so extremely connected to their children in a communications age where texting, emailing, Smartphones and data plans mean the apron-strings never really need to be cut. Helicopter parenting, loosely defined as the syndrome of over-involved parents who schedule every moment for their children, always hovering to make life easier, is a popular topic and a relatively new term. We’ve all read of the parents who program their children to the extent that they are rarely left to their own devices. Preschools chosen from in the womb and playdates stacked back to back from birth. But until now, we haven’t really been given an accurate picture of what those families look like as they mature. This book does that and the picture truly is surprising. Hofer and Sullivan have done some remarkable work here surveying students and tracking the number of times per week they are still in contact with parents after the kids leave for college. They found that the number of times families communicated per week was an astonishing 13.4. That figure did not lessen as the young students grew more comfortable in their new surroundings; instead it remained quite consistent. While one might expect that the kids indicated resentment or a wish for less communication with parents, it was not so. Most reported a high degree of acceptance and comfort with their arrangement. They had grown up on cell phones and email and found it natural to call parents frequently and share information on test scores, classes they signed up for, discussions of social adventures and advice on choosing a major. “Whenever (my daughter) was bored, I was her entertainment.” The authors questioned whether income level, race, ethnicity, or distance from home might have an impact on the amount of contact. But none of these factors made a difference. The only slight variation noted was one of gender: daughters phoned home more than sons. Daughters called 14.5 times a week as compared to 11.3 times for sons, and more often both genders were likely to speak with their mother than the father. The communications, Hofer and Sullivan found, were not one-sided at all. Parents too found it commonplace to check in with their kids. While this research is slightly shocking in that it appears most parties are comfortable with the electronic tether, anecdotally there are some astonishing exceptions. There is the mother who tried to log on to her daughter’s university web account only to be told the password wasn’t working. After a mere 75 failed attempts to guess the password, she crashed the university registration web site. Then there are the parents who get pulled into their young student’s social lives hook, line and sinker, instantly emailing the roommate or some college official to confront and resolve the problem.
One might think then that the IConnected Parent is a sort of cautionary tale warning parents to steer clear from constant contact with their child, in a 24/7 world. Not so really. It is simply a snapshot in time showing a strangely evolving reality. Barbara Hofer is a psychology professor at Middlebury College and Abigail Sullivan Moore is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. She writes about children and educational issues. As a result of their partnership this book is a well rounded picture, both of research and reporting, a more three dimensional product than it would have been if either one had chosen to write it independently. The authors take time to add prescriptive advice. Some of it as simple as don’t always jump to answer the phone during the high school years when your child forgets their hockey sweater or exam paper at home.

The iConnected Parent, by Barbara K Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore, Simon and Schuster, published
August 10, 2010, Free Press, 288 pages gets a $$$$ out of $$$$$ rating.


To see the extended review of this book visit my review at the New York Journal of Books

Friday Follow Bloghop

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friday-follow
This is my new Friday bloghop for the books blog. Link up and follow the first three bloggers and then choose some new blog friends to follow. Happy Friday and Happy Reading!

The Search Is Over

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Honestly this blog is one of the best gigs around. I get to read some truly captivating reads and also some books that make me wonder how they got published. And, on occasion, I get to step outside my literary comfort zone and explore an author I’ve not yet spent time with. And so it was with Nora Roberts. Oh, I know she sits on the shelf at every library, corner store and grocery store checkout. But until this month she was an author I had little desire to read. Then The Search landed on my desk and well the queen of romantic suspense captured my imagination. So we spent a couple of enjoyable weeks together. Until now I believed this author to be romantic pulp fiction and yet, this one intrigued me enough to delve into the story. Luckily I found more there. The Search is the story of Fiona Bristow, who runs a dog training school on the island of Orcas, in the Pacific Northwest. She is also a volunteer with a canine search and rescue unit, which is where the plot begins. The very kickoff of this novel has a toddler that has gone missing from inside the cottage where his parents are holidaying and enjoying temporary-lapse-of-judgement-holiday-sex. Well, let’s just say the topic matter resonated and, when a plot jumpstarts in that manner I am hooked for the ride. I will not spoil this incredibly suspenseful story for my readers but it centred around Fiona and a carpenter named Simon, who seeks her help with his unruly pup named Jaws. Simon is brusque and handy and incapable of disciplining his puppy. Naturally, neither one is looking for a relationship when love comes knocking. The romantic part of the plot is, at times predictable, and there were definite scenes that felt like lady porn, but the suspense kept me on the edge of my seat. The amount of detail in the search and rescue scenes was intriguing and it leant authenticity to the story. Roberts purposefully juxtaposes canine training sessions with the romance plot so that readers will draw parallels between canine and human behaviour. It is not ham-handed but a rather clever insight. Fiona Bristow, a sort of dog whisperer, leads a quiet life on her island until she gets word that a serial killer has begun copying crimes that are tied to a psychopath she helped put away, the Red Scarf Killer. She is a strong and competent heroine, which truly is rather refreshing. She is believable throughout as a person who could fight back if abducted off the street. Dubbed RSK II, the new copycat killer, is hunting Fiona, because she was the only survivor of the intial Red Scarf Killer.  There were moments in the middle of this 488 page novel that I thought the story slowed to a crawl and might have benefitted from more aggressive editing, but overall the story is well told and a definite page-turner. It’s enough to make me pick another one of the author’s many books to see if she is as consistent with character and suspense. Nora Roberts is a New York Times best-selling author of 191 novels. Over 400 million copies of her novels are in print and a total 169 of her 191 novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Stunning, really!

The Search, By Nora Roberts is published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $31.00 Hardcover. July 6, 2010.
ISBN 13 978-0-399-15657-1
$$$$ out of $$$$$. At times it seemed like The Search might never end, but the story is suspenseful and a good summer read.
Thriftymomma was not paid to review this novel. Instead I was given a copy so that I could review it. The opinions are my own.

Clementine review

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This series of books is new to our household. My avid little readers received this one and I thought it worthy of some space here on brainfood. Let me tell you why. Clementine is a cute, quirky girl character I enjoyed a lot. Clementine is talented and she is in gifted math at school, as she will tell you quickly in her story.
She has crazy orange hair, is impulsive and has renamed her darling little brother peas or broccoli or radish or whatever vegetable name she feels appropriate on any given day. That’s partly out of spite that her parents have given her the name of a fruit. You can almost hear the huffy disdain in the main character’s voice. Although this book is a tiny bit Junie B. Jones combined with the various other cute girl characters that are so popular amongst the grade school set, this one stood out to me for a couple of reasons. I like that Clementine is quite clearly a girl with gifted abilities and a bit of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). I know that Grandma didn’t know that when she bought this book for my darling Payton’s ninth birthday. But the character is not your average little girl. I love how Clementine gives us funny insights into her abilities and the way she sees it. She often states that she is always getting in trouble for not paying attention, but she also describes it as hyperattentiveness to other stuff ( which is pretty much how I see both of my children’s abilities on most days of the week). “I got busy working on my project, so I wouldn’t have to hear any: “Clementine-pay-attention’s!”. Except I did anyway.Which was unfair because each time I was the only person in the whole art room who was paying attention which is why I could tell everyone right in the middle of the Pledge of Allegiance that the lunch room lady was sitting in the janitor’s car and they were kissing. Again. No one else saw this disgusting scene because noone else was paying attention out the window!” Clementine has a prissy friend Margaret who is in fourth grade and lives in the same building as the title character. Margaret and Clementine together just cannot seem to stop getting into trouble. The trouble starts when Margaret tries to trim glue from her hair and Clementine tries to help, but instead gets blamed for everything. Clementine is a good friend and a good big sister and a cute girl with a big imagination and a strong creative spirit. I am already seeking the rest of this series out for the children because this book was so cute and it lent itself well to my nightly read out loud format with dramatic reenactments. It is intended for ages 7-10.
I give this book a solid $$$$1/2 out of $$$$$. Price is right and material engaging. Some parents may find her hijinks to be too much and her mouth to be too much (like Junie B. she has a knack for finding trouble.)
Clementine is written by Sara Pennypacker and cover notes it was a New York Times bestseller. Illustrated by Marla Frazee. Price is $4.99 in the U.S. , Paperback, Hyperion Paperbacks for Children.

A Change in Altitude

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Anita Shreve is an immensely successful popular fiction author and yet I had read none of her stories prior to this one. A Change in Altitude is the story of a marriage transformed by a singular tragic minor fleeting event. Not an indiscretion, but more a kneejerk reaction to physical stress. It is a compelling and quick read, perfect for this weather, ideal for at the cottage or a weekend at the beach. A Change in Altitude is very much plot-driven and characters, while interesting, are somewhat two-dimensional. This is the story of a newly married couple, Patrick and Margaret, both 28 as the novel opens, who have moved, following Patrick’s career to Nairobi for medical research. When the story begins, the newlyweds are living with Arthur and Diana, a well-to-do, condescending British couple of landlords. The themes here of love and loss and soul-searching with a backdrop of harsh unforgiving elements are not uncommon, and some might say overdone. A struggling relationship juxtaposed with a harsh African climate is certainly a story that has been told, again and again. And yet despite all of the superficialilities here, it is a nice read. No great turn of phrase that made my heart skip a beat, wishing I had thought of it myself. No masterful suspense, or great unexpected twist at the end. There are moments that will shock you, and in the interest of not giving too much away I will simply state that this is the story of a couple who go climbing Mount Kenya, in harshest African environment, without much training, preparation or thought and, accompanied by friends, on this life-altering physical journey they experience a devastating event that transforms all four of their lives. What follows the ill-thought out climb is the unravelling and piecing together of a marriage, and perhaps a bit of self discovery on the part of Margaret. Shreve’s detail of climbing Mount Kenya is brutally realistic and detailed, as it should be, because the author herself has climbed this mountain. Shreve is billed as a master of domestic drama and she dwells a lot on psychology of relationships, but her hand is somehow a lighter touch than that of similar authors like Jodi Picoult. While I enjoyed reading this book for a change and realize not every book can rip your heart out and leave you changed as a reader, I unfortunately suspect this book is easy to forget, as are the characters. Shreve lives in Massachusetts and is the well known author of The Weight of Water, Testimony, The Pilot’s Wife, Light on Snow and many others.

Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group, Back Bay Books, New York, 2009. Paperback edition 2010, $17.99 Canada and $14.99 U.S.

Thriftymommas rating $$$ out of $$$$$. Three dollar signs out of five. Lightweight, untaxing. Great for a day at the beach. Thriftymomma’s opinions are all her own. I receive no compensation for my reviews, but a copy of this book was provided by the publisher for free so that I might review it.

Forfeiting All Sanity: A Mother’s Story of Raising a Child With Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

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Ashley Taylor is a “beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed angel” in the words of her adoptive mother, Jennifer Poss Taylor. Ashley Taylor also has profound brain damage, done prior to her birth, the result of prenatal alcohol exposure. In other words, because her biological mother drank while pregnant, the beautiful eldest daughter of Jennifer Poss Taylor and her husband David, faces a lifetime of struggles with behaviours, physical and neurological challenges, all stemming from a largely preventable birth defect. Forfeiting All Sanity is a quick and educational memoir or perhaps, a momoir, about one child’s struggle with fetal alcohol syndrome. Ashley cannot tell her own story as her IQ falls below 80 and she is developmentally delayed as a result of her brain damage. In Canada, it should be noted that we have generally been using the term FASD, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, to describe the array of birth defects arising from prenatal alcohol exposure. In Canada there are an estimated 300,000 people living with FASD. My youngest daughter is one of them. In the United States, another common statistic that is quoted is that of 40,000 babies born each year with FASD. Children diagnosed with an FASD have IQs ranging from 72 upto 120 and a good number of those function within the normal range of intelligence. But the impairments can be apparent to areas of memory, impulse control, emotion regulation and social difficulty. As well, thoses with FASD can have heart, kidney, lung, vision and hearing abnormalities. They often have sensory integration dysfunction. Forfeiting All Sanity is quite compelling and frankly I couldn’t put it down. There is little out there for parents of children diagnosed with FASD to read regarding this devastating disorder. Our entire community has already responded keenly to this new book. Taylor is a savvy entrepreneur and very motivated to get the word out regarding FASD. She is also a deeply religious and spiritual person who clearly finds strength to deal with the challenges of raising two special needs children through her church and beliefs. I am certainly not criticizing that in any way. People who parent these really difficult and also, at times, rewarding children, need to find their source of support somewhere or they will quite simply not survive. This memoir contains many spiritual references and quotes from the Bible. This sometimes gets in the way of the narrative. Poss Taylor notes that it is a known fact close to 80 percent of parents of children with autism end up divorced. I have, in fact, read that close to 85 % of marriages end in divorce when one of the children is diagnosed with special needs. It is beyond difficult and unimaginable for most people, the path many have to travel to fight for their children. Poss Taylor is intriguing in that she has one child diagnosed with autism and one with FASD. She has a unique perspective then on the similarities and differences between both of these spectrum disorders. There are, in fact, numerous similarities between the two, but she notes: “It is not a secret how difficult raising a child with autism can be, but I will reiterate this right now – Grant is a breeze to raise compared to Ashley.” Initially I was concerned this book would simply be all positive inspirational anecdotes about life with Ashley, but in fact it is a balanced account of the rewards and challenges. Poss Taylor is not unlike most adoptive parents in that they are resourceful and often well educated, talented at advocating for their children. Ashley’s mother indicates she gained further insight into her daughter in the process of writing this book and I am not suprised by that. FASD, is a largely invisible neurological brain disorder. It is a physical deformity of the brain that is not seen when one looks at the child or adult in front of them. There are some common facial symptoms of alcohol-related brain damage, but only a small portion of people with FASD have that precise combination of facial abnormalities. This disorder often goes undiagnosed, unrecognized or misdiagnosed because it looks like so many other things. It is a bizarre life parenting and dwelling with someone on the spectrum. Learning how to manage a child with these special needs is experiential and demands flexibility. FASD is not linear or progressive, but somewhat cyclical and often unpredictable. A child may know how to print the number eight on Friday and then lose it by Monday and retrieve it again two weeks later. Their memory literally has big gaps and holes. There are good days and bad days, peaks and plateaus and in periods where our children are functioning well and knowing what to expect it is almost possible at times to forget they have a disability. Then out of left field comes a period of intense destructive behaviour or rage and it can leave the whole family reeling. Poss Taylor does a good job describing her daughter’s destructive behaviour and the lengths to which they have had to go to find things many others take for granted, like a school that supports her special needs. She also refers to the behaviours that impact the other siblings in the family. FASD is gaining more recognition slowly in North America, but it still lacks the level of commitment by researchers, educators and politicians that many other physical and mental disabilities have received.
 
Forfeiting All Sanity, by Jennifer Poss Taylor, Tate Publishing &Enterprises, USA, 2010, 130 pages, paperback, $10.99.
Thriftymommastips rating is $$$$ out of $$$$$. Educational, not overpriced.
Thriftymommedia is not compensated for reviews. Opinions are my own. I received a copy of this book free from the author.

My Name Is Memory

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Meet your amazing summer read for 2010. If you haven’t got it yet, run out and buy My Name Is Memory because this one is going to plow through the charts to the top. My Name Is Memory has all the elements, including buzz that will make it a chart-topper and a people-pleaser. The big scramble for film rights and the fact that this author, Ann Brashares, who also wrote the Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants series, has been able to generate bidding wars for her work, got my interest and admiration right away. When this one landed on my desk here at brainfood I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I was truly excited to start this read. Would it be a young adult book? Was it a vampire tale ala Twilight? Was it for adults? Where exactly was it going to lead? My Name is Memory is a sexy epic love story that will keep you guessing and turning pages. At times it reminded me a bit of The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, the story every bit as gripping. My Name Is Memory is driven by the two star-crossed lovers: Daniel and Sophia. Daniel is a charming, brooding, tortured teenager when we meet him at the high school prom and Sophia’s current incarnation is Lucy Broward, also a teenager. Daniel is an outsider of sorts dropped into the high school after many years of searching for his true love, Sophia, a woman he tells us he searches through time for, and has been seeking ever since he killed her. We meet Lucy heading to her prom, hoping to run into Daniel there and having rejected an offer or two escorts that would be appropriate and yet not memorable. We are told that Lucy’s sister Dana has suffered mental illness and is no longer with the family, details to be unveiled as the plot moves along. Lucy is the child her parents pin their hopes on, a good girl, and yet her mother notes disappointment: “She’d had two lovely fair-haired daughters and not one eager boy in a tuxedo to show for it. To look like Lucy had been enough in her day.” Daniel and Sophia are time travellers, reincarnated time and again. But Daniel also possesses the gift of memory, carrying his with him through his many past lives. It is a bitter gift that haunts him, especially when it comes to Sophia. Sophia’s spirit also travels through time, reincarnated often, but she doesn’t carry memory with her, so she is at times unable to recognize Daniel in his many shapes, forms and ages. There are moments she clearly has deja vu but doesn’t know why or how or what the mysterious pull to this apparent stranger is. Also as they parachute through various eras, they are sometimes incompatible in age, with him occasionally a child and her fully grown, he is often able to recognize and watch from afar, a voyeur to her relationships and many lives, unable to affect them because of the many factors keeping them apart. My Name is Memory is a great read, clearly plot-driven with strong characters. The research is meticulous and the many insights into various eras and lifestyles make this story truly educational, unique, and fast-paced. I will not spoil the ending as readers should pick this one up for themselves. Suffice it to say though, that if I had one small criticism of the novel, which is an adult fiction story with a strong romance and history plot, it would be that the ending lacked a huge emotional tug or twist. It isn’t a huge thing, because the book is great and the movie should be too. But for me as a reader, beginnings and endings are incredibly important. The quick punchy start gets you to buy the book and commit to reading, but it’s the ending that, when executed with just the right combination of style and emotion, makes a book resonate, or burrow beneath your skin to stay. My Name Is Memory was a great read, and yet as a writer I envisioned two or three alternative endings that I think might have kicked it up a notch and been more artistic. As it ends now, the author clearly leaves a strategic opening for a sequel, both in print, and on the big screen. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is immensely enjoyable and entertaining as it is, even if it failed to move me to tears or take my breath away.

My Name Is Memory, Ann Brashares, Riverhead Books, Penguin Group Canada, $32.50, New York 2010. Thriftymommas rating $$$$ out of $$$$$

Disclosure: Thriftymommasbrainfood is not paid for her opinions and they are all my own. However in order to review books I often receive a free copy from the publisher. Also as a result of being an Amazon affiliate I may receive a small commission from purchases.