A heartwarming story of how a young woman confronted dyslexia and went on to help others.
A school psychologist works to accept her own past while also fighting for her students.
In Kabrich’s debut novel, 47-year-old Mary Madelyn Meyers, a psychologist in a Minnesota school system in 2005, struggles to maintain a professional demeanor after her mother dies. She argues with a rage bordering on violence against teachers who want to hold back students with disabilities or different learning styles. When she begins seeing social worker Irene Ingersoll, readers learn that these outbursts, which Mary calls “the mercurial monster,” are linked to her childhood. Back in 1967, Mary was in third grade, went by the nickname “Maddie,” and struggled with severe dyslexia. Her teacher, Mrs. Zinc, classified readers at different levels as types of birds: the best readers were “eagles” and the slowest, “sparrows.” Maddie, time after time, was labeled a sparrow, and she lived in fear of repeating third grade as a result. However, when Mrs. Zinc began reading a new story, The Fairy Angel’s Gift, in class, Maddie became inspired to put new energy into her reading; she stole the book and began working hard on it outside of class. As these two plotlines develop, the older Mary balances her personal struggles and professional life, Maddie learns to read The Fairy Angel’s Gift, and Kabrich reveals an engaging story of self-actualization. The primary motor of the narrative is Mary’s quest for stability in the workplace, but its emotional core rests in the third-grader’s struggle; Maddie’s earnest effort to push herself is endearing and inspiring. Still, the true strength of Kabrich’s novel isn’t its story but rather the important issues to which it draws readers’ attention. Maddie, and the students that she works with as an adult, exemplifies the countless kids that don’t conform to common academic standards. The author demonstrates how school administrations can allow these children to fall through the cracks, sometimes causing lifelong damage to their confidence and learning abilities. It’s an important lesson for everyone to learn and one that Kabrich teaches well.
A heartwarming story of how a young woman confronted dyslexia and went on to help others.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Open Wings Press
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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