A moving, valuable inside view of an often misunderstood profession.
A Christian author (Around Our Town, 2011) recounts her career as a child-protective social worker in this memoir.
Skinner—a wife and mother, a former teacher, and a former foster parent—learned in the 1990s that there was a need for mentors of inexperienced parents, and she decided that she could help. She was ultimately hired as a full-time social worker, and she spent 23 years, in the states of Texas and Arkansas, specializing in foster and adoptive placements; along the way, she investigated physical and sexual abuse cases and led group-therapy sessions for male sex offenders. Skinner calls her memories her “cleansing breaths,” and as she recounts them, she describes how her own personality quirks and reliance on prayer guided and complicated her job. Her career took her in unexpected directions and often placed her at odds with the bureaucracy of child protective services and the attorneys appointed to represent the children. She recounts many triumphs, however, such as taking underfed children to McDonald’s for the first time, getting a violent child to trust her, and urging a mother to face the truth about a stepfather’s abuse. But the deeply religious author also admits that she “struggled” with the notion of placing children in non-Christian homes—which, for her, even included those of Mormons; even so, she still managed to form a good working relationship with a Wiccan group facilitator. Black-and-white drawings by Skinner’s daughter accompany most of the 12 chapters, and sidebars delve deeper into professional jargon and on-the-job observations. Skinner, a conservative Christian, emerges in the text as a compassionate, fair-minded professional who made placements based on what she thought was the best possible outcome for the children. She also has much to say about what she sees as counterproductive policies and bureaucratic red tape and also how TV programs, such as Judging Amy, have misled the public about her profession. At times, her folksy style moves at a slow pace, and she occasionally unnecessarily repeats herself. However, she’s scrupulous to admit her personal biases and acknowledge the times when her sympathies affected her judgments.
A moving, valuable inside view of an often misunderstood profession.Pub Date: July 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5043-5607-7
Page Count: 228
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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