A child psychologist recounts the difficulties of raising a son with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in this memoir.
Early in Quie’s (co-author: You Might Be Raising an A**hole If…, 2018) book, she discusses the rocky months surrounding her son William’s birth, describing a nurse’s accidentally breaking her water, her infant son’s inability to properly nurse, and the onset of postpartum depression. Even as a toddler, the author recalls, William showed abnormal behavior, including nonstop energy and a refusal to eat anything that didn’t look absolutely flawless, as though it was “molded in a wax museum.” When William was 4, the author and her husband adopted a 14-month-old girl from China; the baby had severe attachment issues, which further drained the author’s emotional energy. After William began attending school, Quie saw that he required professional help that she couldn’t give. She describes her frustration with William’s inability to focus enough to tie his shoes, to follow directions of more than one step, and to learn to write. Even after he was diagnosed with ADHD, Quie clung to her belief that her education in child psychology, and her and her husband’s dedication to parenting, would be enough to help William thrive. For years, she grew angry with William’s teachers who refused to acknowledge the difficulties that children with ADHD can face. Eventually, William was prescribed Adderall and, over time, the family developed routines to help William make it through each day. Quie’s yearning to help her son will be keenly relatable for many, and over the course of the book, she strikes an appealing tone of compassion. She also punctuates the text with well-timed moments of humor: “my mind had a heyday casting spells on Dr. Morris. A flat tire on his way home from work, a vicious complaint to the medical board, a grandchild who only ate Pop-Tarts.” The author also mixes in diagnostic terminology in a natural way, such as explanations of ADHD subtypes and stimulants used for treatment. Readers who are close to children who may be struggling with ADHD will find solace in Quie’s story.
An unflinching, earnest, and vulnerable parenting account.Pub Date: May 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63489-217-9
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Wise Ink
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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