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THE BOY WHO LOST HIS ATTENTION

Name: THE BOY WHO LOST HIS ATTENTION
Author: DPA Weston
ISBN: 978-1-5255-3788-2

by DPA Weston , illustrated by Leena AK ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2019

A helpful adjunct to diagnosis, therapy, and meds for youngsters with ADHD and their families.

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A boy with attention deficit disorder learns coping methods and appreciates his own strengths in this illustrated children’s book.

Despite the title, this work’s unnamed, dark-skinned protagonist doesn’t exactly lose his attention. More often, his attention distracts him, especially in school, “by showing him all the other things that were happening inside and outside.” As the boy gets older and meets higher expectations for self-control, his distractibility, curiosity, and high energy cause problems at home and at school. Teachers devise various strategies to help him pay attention, such as rewards for completing work; at home, the boy’s mother also tries to keep him organized with lists and schedules and signs him up for energetic activities. A special doctor performs tests and diagnoses “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, for short,” and also discovers the boy is gifted in reading and math. With medication, the boy’s school performance improves, although he dislikes the pills’ side effects and sometimes doesn’t take them. Eventually, he realizes his “superpowers”—talents other kids don’t have—such as noticing patterns, grasping new ideas quickly, and problem-solving. (In fact, kids without ADHD can also have these qualities.) As an adult, now with “Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, or AADD,” he has a good job and uses his superpowers while still taking meds and managing his organizational challenges. Several pages of information and resources on ADHD are included. Weston (The Girl Who Couldn’t Read, 2018), an elementary school teacher with special needs students, skillfully describes the various manifestations of ADHD in simple language that youngsters with the condition can easily understand and relate to. The book covers the sometimes-puzzling aspects of ADHD, like the ability to superfocus on interesting things like video games. The author usefully acknowledges that not every solution works and that medication has drawbacks, helping to manage readers’ expectations while still providing hope and optimism. The colored-pencil or crayon images by debut illustrator AK (The Girl Who Couldn’t Read, 2018), a sixth-grade student, are well-done in a naïve manner, showing various expressions and diverse characters.

A helpful adjunct to diagnosis, therapy, and meds for youngsters with ADHD and their families.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5255-3788-2

Page Count: 48

Publisher: FriesenPress

Review Posted Online: March 15, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.