CHASING LEE

Summers offers a loving memoir about raising a neurodivergent child.

The author presents each milestone in the life of her adopted, nonbinary child, Lee—who was diagnosed with ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and mild anxiety disorder—as they moved from childhood into adulthood. Summers’ narration has the tone of a person thinking aloud to the reader as events occur. She tells of developing a support network at Lee’s schools with education teams and professional counselors. At the advice of Lee’s first grade teacher, she considered and moved forward with pursuing a special education plan for Lee to get “help in reading, writing skills, and supervision from a district OT,” or occupational therapist. She also contacted a therapist herself for parenting support and learned to address Lee’s learning concerns one day at a time. Over the course of the narrative, readers sees how both the author and her child developed an indelible spirit and remarkable courage. Summers ably recounts how Lee embraced change at each grade level, amid struggles and triumphant moments; for example, their fifth grade teacher assisted with their emergent dysgraphia by having them dictate their essays as the teacher typed their words. Lee struggled with depression and agreed to see a professional therapist; the teen later told the author that they identified as nonbinary, and that they’d “always felt like a boy, but all you saw was a girl in me. It was what you wanted to have. A daughter.” The author affectingly displays her unconditional love and full acceptance of her child throughout their journey. For example, when recounting how Lee reached a key education milestone, the author engagingly notes the words of Lee’s kindergarten teacher: “Assessing Lee [was] like getting a butterfly to land on a particular flower”; Summers then touchingly adds that, now, “Lee [has] found a landing.”

A moving remembrance that clearly renders both a parent’s and child’s journeys.