A new review of the book, from Publishers Weekly...
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Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter
Rummel-Hudson, Robert (Author)
ISBN: 0312372426
St. Martin's Press
Published 2008-02
Hardcover, $22.95 (288p)
Family & Relationships | Children with Special Needs; Biography & Autobiography | Parental Memoirs
Reviewed 2008-01-07
PW
The monster in this heartfelt memoir is polymicrogyria, an extremely rare brain malformation that, in the case of Rummel-Hudson's daughter Schuyler, has completely impaired her ability to speak. During her first three years, as her parents seek to find out what hidden "monster" is causing her wordlessness, they endure "two years of questions and tests and at least one unsatisfactory diagnosis." But while Rummel-Hudson initially rages at God for giving Schuyler "a life that would never ever be what we'd imagined it to be," his depiction of her next four years becomes a study not only in Schuyler's vivacious and resilient personality, but also in the redeeming power of understanding and a "stupid blind father's love." As he describes how Schuyler eagerly takes to various forms of communication, such as basic sign language and an alternative and augmentative communication device that provides whole words she can type to express her thoughts, Rummel-Hudson effectively and compassionately shows how the "gentle strangeness about her, like a visitor from some realm where no one spoke but everyone laughed," leads him to understand that "she was the one teaching me how to make my way in this new world." (Feb.)
Copyright © 1997-2005 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
10 comments:
Brava, Sir Fancy-Pants!
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Congratulations! Those pants are looking good on you.
Let us hope the pants do not chafe as much as the Pajamas.
Congratulations, see you at the stalkings.
Yessirre - them pants. Quite Fancy!
Most excellent.
Lookin' mighty fine in those fancy pants, mister! Congratulations. Just the first of many, I'm sure.
I have asked my library system (Toronto Public) to order it!
Well done!
Yay! Good PW review. If your publisher is going to exhibit at the Texas Library Association show in Dallas in April, you should see if they could set up an event for you there!
I don't know, but I'll ask! (I'm also trying to find out about the Texas Book Festival in Austin in the fall.)
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