The kids gave Stu and I a StoryWorth subscription for Christmas this year. I’m excited, and a little intimidated, to get started. Maybe writing will sustain me after I retire next year. God I hope so!
Sparse writing that is nonetheless saturated with a profound depth of sentiment and insight, is the hallmark of Keegan’s writing style. The portrayal of a struggling family forced to surrender one of their children to live with relatives is powerful and moving subject matter. I empathized with the child who describes her circumstance this way, “I am in a spot where I can neither be what I always am nor turn into what I could be.”
It’s difficult for me to be too critical though because I met the Marie Benedict at a speed-signing at Titcomb’s this summer, and she is gracious and lovely! Two friends of mine, Deb J and Brenda, loved this book, so clearly Benedict’s style is appealing in ways that other people appreciate.
I’ll be interested to compare the writing with that of The First Ladies, co-written by Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (who was also present at the signing and coauthored The Personal Librarian with Benedict). I bought that book but have lent it out to Brenda and Lisa while I slog my way through another solo-Benedict selection about Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine.
The book shines a light on some thorny societal issues including poverty, foster care and children’s services, and substance abuse. This can sometimes feel preachy and heavy-handed, but by far what kept me reading was the characterization, especially the distinctive voice of the wise-beyond-his-years protagonist, Demon.
Dangers, both environmental and human, lurk at every turn as the pair battles hunger, hopelessness, and despair. Wheeling a shopping cart containing their meager possessions and dwindling stores of food, they use a tattered map to make their way south in search of warmth on a ravaged, rainy planet.
This terrifying, bleak reality serves as a menacing backdrop to the tender moments between father and son who explore their feelings of compassion, determination, resignation, and grief.
Linsin’s theories validate all my frustrations about the lack of support for student disrespect at my school. I even shared an article with my principal, to no avail. Nonetheless, the straightforward message and easy to implement strategies prescribed by SCM help me maintain my sanity in the “world gone mad” atmosphere at BUES!
The SCM website includes an extensive library of past articles categorized for easy access:
Also, my therapist was in her 70s in the 90s—so do the math—and the thought of trying to find a new one makes me depressed.
Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery by Catherine Gildiner might just get me through my savage case of S.A.D. this winter. Reading Gildiner’s accounts of her interactions with these five very diverse cases, I recognized many familiar themes from my own therapy experience.
"What Laura, Peter, Danny, Alana, and Madeline can teach us is that we can all be heroes. Their struggles exemplify Thomas Hardy’s words in his poem “In Tenebris II”: “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.” They remind us that it is possible, although not always easy, to overcome our fears, to break out of our self-imposed boundaries where we mistake confinement for security. Finally, these heroes inspire us by showing that all self-examination is brave."
Head shrinking requires a courage that only the strongest among us even attempt.
"In a world that did not care and was getting worse all the time, worse and worse and more and more dangerous, a danger you could see all around you, all you had to do was to look at the crime and the potholes in the streets and the weird people who now came when you called for anything, for a plumber, an electrician, for help with your garden, for help with anything at all."
