Skeptics will raise their eyebrows, but open-minded parents will find encouragement in Evans’ story.
A mother turns to Chinese medicine and alternative therapies to heal her autistic child.
Evans’ daughter, Sarah, was a bright, happy child until the age of 4, when she began exhibiting some unusual symptoms, including an awkward gait, repetitive speech patterns, and trouble socializing with other children. Her behavioral issues were compounded by disturbing physical symptoms, including food sensitivities, hives, vomiting, and bug bites that refused to heal. Trips to numerous doctors yielded no clear answers. The official diagnosis from her pediatrician was “delayed development,” although Evans recounts that “he told me in words that she was autistic.” Desperate for answers, the author embarked on a quest to cure her child. Eventually, a friend’s recommendation led her to Dr. Ross J. Stark, who practiced traditional Chinese medicine as well as an unusual alternative therapy called Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique, developed by a chiropractor and acupuncturist named Devi Nambudripad in the 1980s. Once Sarah began the NAET treatments, Evans writes, her condition improved dramatically. The child’s visits to Dr. Stark, coupled with dietary changes, seemed to reduce her dyslexia symptoms, improve her ability to focus, and enhance her coordination. The author tells of her daughter’s therapy in exhaustive detail, explaining the meticulous process of clearing Sarah’s body of the “blockages in her system that did not allow various nutrients to flow freely.” Although Evans had already removed many problematic foods from Sarah’s diet months earlier, she says, “they would still be present in her system since the body carries a memory of everything that passes through it”; the alternative therapies, she notes, recalibrated Sarah’s digestive system and eventually allowed her to return some offending foods to her diet. Evans’ account of her daughter’s transformation is certainly inspiring. However, the treatments she describes sometimes sound far-fetched, and the book stumbles when it points to discredited research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield to support Evans’ contention that childhood vaccines may be connected to her daughter’s condition. Nonetheless, the author’s commitment to doing whatever it took to ease her daughter’s symptoms will appeal to other parents looking for solutions to their own children’s health problems.
Skeptics will raise their eyebrows, but open-minded parents will find encouragement in Evans’ story.Pub Date: June 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-37465-8
Page Count: 245
Publisher: West River Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.
The renowned writer offers advice on information-gathering and nonfiction composition.
The book consists of eight instructive and charming essays about creating narratives, all of them originally composed for the New Yorker, where McPhee (Silk Parachute, 2010, etc.) has been a contributor since the mid-1960s. Reading them consecutively in one volume constitutes a master class in writing, as the author clearly demonstrates why he has taught so successfully part-time for decades at Princeton University. In one of the essays, McPhee focuses on the personalities and skills of editors and publishers for whom he has worked, and his descriptions of those men and women are insightful and delightful. The main personality throughout the collection, though, is McPhee himself. He is frequently self-deprecating, occasionally openly proud of his accomplishments, and never boring. In his magazine articles and the books resulting from them, McPhee rarely injects himself except superficially. Within these essays, he offers a departure by revealing quite a bit about his journalism, his teaching life, and daughters, two of whom write professionally. Throughout the collection, there emerge passages of sly, subtle humor, a quality often absent in McPhee’s lengthy magazine pieces. Since some subjects are so weighty—especially those dealing with geology—the writing can seem dry. There is no dry prose here, however. Almost every sentence sparkles, with wordplay evident throughout. Another bonus is the detailed explanation of how McPhee decided to tackle certain topics and then how he chose to structure the resulting pieces. Readers already familiar with the author’s masterpieces—e.g., Levels of the Game, Encounters with the Archdruid, Looking for a Ship, Uncommon Carriers, Oranges, and Coming into the Country—will feel especially fulfilled by McPhee’s discussions of the specifics from his many books.
A superb book about doing his job by a master of his craft.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-14274-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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