A mother’s unadorned account of raising a troubled child.
A harrowing story of an international adoption gone wrong.
In a debut memoir first published in Spanish in 2015, Franco soberly recounts her failed adoption experience. Thirty-six and single, she went through an agency to adopt from a Russian orphanage. She traveled from Barcelona to Yekaterinburg and met Alba, who, at 2 years old, appeared small for her age but intelligent. The two got along well, and Alba called her “Mama.” But Alba’s behavior was worrying. She trashed their hotel room, and back in Spain, she slapped a baby in a stroller. Soon, Alba was expelled from school due to her aggressiveness. In the meantime, Franco fell in love with Pablo, and they married. She bore three children, and the family moved frequently, including to Chicago and Australia, for Pablo’s work. Complaints accumulated as Alba disrupted classes and damaged property. “In society’s eyes, seen from the outside, I was simply a bad mother who couldn’t control her daughter,” the author reports. Even more distressingly, Alba started hurting her siblings, wrapping sheets around the babies’ necks and throwing her 2-year-old brother into a swimming pool. “Every day she scared me more,” Franco writes, and “my efforts to change her behavior were futile.” Through it all, she kept Pablo, who was often away on business, in the dark. There were innumerable close shaves with the children’s safety, yet a combination of incredulity and guilt kept Franco silent. Ultimately, with her parents’ help, she had Alba admitted to a children’s institution in Barcelona. This disturbing material is relayed in a calm, measured tone that occasionally falls flat because of a dearth of discrete scenes and dialogue. In essence, the book is an extended self-justification, so avoiding melodrama was important. Even this short chronicle becomes repetitive when recounting patterns of behavior, though. Thankfully, despite talk of psychopathy, Franco doesn’t take the low road of portraying Alba as a monster but keeps in mind the girl’s rough start in life. Franco convinces the reader she showed nearly infinite patience—and did all she could for Alba.
A mother’s unadorned account of raising a troubled child.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63183-415-8
Page Count: 131
Publisher: BookLogix
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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