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The Lost Daughters of China is that rare book that can be many things to different people. Part memoir, part travelogue, part East-West cultural commentary, and part adoption how-to, Karin Evans's book is greater than the sum of its parts. Evans weaves together her experience of adopting a Chinese infant with observations about Chinese women's history and that country's restrictive, if unevenly enforced, reproductive policies. She and her husband adopted Kelly Xiao Yu in 1997, and anyone curious about adopting from a Chinese orphanage--which houses girls and disabled boys--will learn about the mechanics and the emotional freight of the two-year process. Borrowing an image from Chinese folklore, Evans conveys herself, her husband, and their daughter as tethered by a red string that yoked them across an ocean and an equally awesome cultural divide.
The elegant prose is spiced with bits of ironic cultural dissonance. A discount shopper, Evans "felt more than a little strange buying China-made [baby] clothes with which to bundle up a tiny baby, one of China's own, and bring her home." On a bus tour through southern China, she is one of a "bunch of Americans with Chinese infants singing 'Que Sera Sera' in the middle of a sea of traffic. Will she be happy? Will she be rich?" To suddenly hear Doris Day over the horns of a Kowloon traffic jam is heady stuff indeed.
The Lost Daughters of China is at its best when describing Evans's tally of emotional loss and gain. At one point the bureaucratic adoption process is unaccountably delayed, but her father dies during that time and she's able to sit by his bedside. The most mysterious example of this emotional calculus is Kelly's birth mother. Evans invents many plausible scenarios that caused this unknown woman to abandon her three-month-old daughter at a market. These incomplete, necessarily provisional stories help give a face to the larger cultural processes that compel new parents to abandon 1.7 million girl babies annually. The stuff of headlines--human rights, infanticide, rural and urban poverty--is rendered personally relevant in Evans's compelling book. --Kathi Inman Berens
Book Description
"This book calls attention to the pressing issues of abandoned baby girls in China, the result of a combination of historical and cultural prejudices against women and the current draconian, one-child policy. The Lost Daughters of China is an evocative memoir that will not only attract parents or would-be parents of Chinese baby girls but will touch the hearts of us all." (Chicago Tribune)
Proclaimed an instant classic upon its hardcover publication, The Lost Daughters of China is at once compelling and informative. Journalist Karin Evans tells the story of adopting her daughter, Kelly, who was once one of the hundreds of thousands of infant girls who wait for parents in orphanages all over China. Weaving her personal account with extensive research, Evans investigates the conditions that have led to generations of abandoned Chinese girls and a legacy of lost women.
With a new epilogue added for the paperback edition, this book will appeal to anyone interested in China and in the emotional ties that connect people regardless of genes or culture. In the words of bestselling novelist Amy Tan, The Lost Daughters of China is "not only an evocative memoir on East-West adoption but also a bridge to East-West understanding of human rights in China."
Customer Reviews:
I was so nieve before reading this book!.......2007-08-22
All I can say about this book is that it really opened my eyes. A couple times while reading I thought to myself, "Could this be real?" The statistics and information given in this book are mind blowing. The book delivers the information in an organized, easy to understand way. After reading so much about the adoption process it was a nice change to read about the culture my child will be coming from. I gained historical and political perspective as well a real understanding about the way things "actually" are in China. I have to say that anyone adopting a Chinese daughter should read this book. I can only imagine it will also help me answer some questions that may arrise as my daughter grows.
Very Educational!.......2007-05-16
A must read. Very informative on China and how the adoption process came to be what it is today & why. Sad and heartbreaking at the same time. Did not agree w/all aspects (belief system of author) but apart from that, it is a really good book.
Lost Daughters of China.......2007-02-01
Since my own daughter is in the process of adopting a baby from China, I thought this book would give me insight in the whole process. The author is from the Bay area so we had much in common.The book was very informative.
A must read for anyone contemplating adoption from China.......2007-01-03
I found this book to capture a lot of the concepts involved in the path to adoption. The style of writing is very good and enjoyable and easy to read. I have sent this book out on loan to many of my friends and family to open their eyes to the "big picture" of adoption. There was a bit of repartition in a couple of spots but that's about all I could critisise. A great read to help prepare for the whole process.
Highly recommended!!
Outstanding and still timely.......2006-12-18
This is still the preeminent resource. I have read so many memoirs, stories, studies and the like in this subject area. I want to be very informed as I have adopted from China. I read this one before I went to China and was awaiting our referral. Some of the material is a tad dated but the essence still holds true. There isn't a better resource to read in my opinion. The Children Can't Wait by Laura Cecere is also fabulous but more stilted but well worth your time if you can find a copy. The Lost Daughters of China is fabulous and worth your time.
Book Description
Expecting to treat some mildly ill children from the streets of Bolivia on a quick "service trip," an idealistic young medical student gets more than he bargained for when he takes a year off from Harvard Medical School to work at an orphanage in La Paz. As he comes to know the children, and sees how they live, Chi Huang is drawn deeper and deeper into their complex and desperate lives. The doctor soon realizes that to truly help these children, he will have to follow the example of Jesus: live among them, love them in spite of their brokenness, and cling to his faith in God's goodness, even when it appears it is nowhere to be found. A true story that will inspire and challenge readers to greater faith and action. The book includes a Foreword by Harvard professor and world-renowned expert on the moral and spiritual development of children, Dr. Robert Coles.
Customer Reviews:
A look at Bolivian street kids.......2007-08-03
This book, When Invisible Children Sing, is a true story about a Taiwanese doctor who was living in America. He decided to help the street kids in Bolivia with his medical abilities. This book is about how Dr. Chi helps some children. You will hear of Mercedes, Gabriel, Vicki, little Rosa, and many more. One of the stories is of Danalia. She has two kids. Their names are Natalia and Maria. Maria is a 5 month-old baby. She gets very sick and needs to be taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, Dr. Chi is on vacation. Danalia reluctantly takes Maria to the hospital. Even though Maria goes to the hospital, she dies. I like this book because I like medical books and mission books. This book combines the two subjects. I would definitely recommend it because it is an excellent book; but not for anyone younger than junior high, because the book talks about sexual abuse. The content is more for older children. You don't want to miss it!
Compelling narrative.......2007-01-14
Dr. Chi writes an exceptionally transparent account of his own spiritual journey and personal passion for helping "the least of these". He wrestles with doubt and anger, painfully discovers the limits of compassion, and ultimately develops a successful strategy to rescue a handful of the hundreds of abandoned children from the otherwise hopeless streets of La Paz, Bolivia.
This book is a quick read, but opens one's eyes to the humanity of children and adults living on the streets--whether at home or at thirteen thousand feet in the high desert of the Andes. Neither liberal nor conservative, neither utopian nor cynical; the author offers a balanced view of reality on the streets of Bolivia's capital city without the burden of a philosophical agenda. His insights have value in understanding the plight of abandoned children around the world, and hints at potential solutions which offer hope for children like those described so eloquently in Dr. Chi's text.
Inspiring.......2007-01-11
Chi Huang writes with an open heart. He shows his love for his family and the street children of Bolivia. It is apparent to the reader that his sister's death has left an impact on his life. This book makes you hang your mouth open in awe, wipe the tears from your eyes and smile with joy. Excellent!
Offers insights into how more can be given aid, one child at a time........2007-01-06
When Invisible Children Sing is the true story of five street of La Paz, Bolivia, by Dr. Chi Huang, a doctor who traveled to work with orphans and children in need for a year. A heart-rending portrait of children abandoned and betrayed by the very institutions meant to protect them, When Invisible Children Sing describes the slow process of rehabilitation, and the shining power of hope. There are 70 million "invisible" street children in the world; When Invisible Children Sing is the story of how help was extended a few, and offers insights into how more can be given aid, one child at a time.
Opened My Eyes and My Heart.......2007-01-05
An eye opening and gut wrenching account of how street children in Bolivia live their lives. Dr. Huang places his faith and his deeds where the "rubber hits the road" and lives among them as he ministers to them in their destitution.
Book Description
The Chinese believe an unseen red thread joins those in this life who are destined to connect. For photographer Richard Bowen, that thread led him to China's state-run welfare institutions, where there are thousands of children, primarily girls, growing up without families to take care of them. Mei Mei presents a poignant glimpse of just a few of these remarkable children. Composed against neutral backgrounds, these portraits capture the girls inner lives, away from their often bleak surroundings. The images show an almost endless range of expressions: small faces filled with longing and hope, joy and sadness, humor and mischief, defiance and despair. Through the camera's eye these young children are no longer orphans, but individuals whose personalities are as vital, distinct, and beautiful as any mother's child. When that unique human being comes into focus, the connection is made and the red thread becomes visible. And once seen, the bond can never be broken.
Customer Reviews:
Touching.......2007-06-08
This book touches my soul every time I open it. I have adopted two girls from China and I see their reflections on every page.
Wonderful book!.......2007-01-25
We are in the process of adopting a baby from China, and this book just made my heart break. The images are so beautiful, and the children are so precious! In my mind, they seem to be simply be waiting... We can't wait to give one of them a home.
Heartbreaking.......2007-01-06
As an adoptive parent of a beautiful Chinese girl, I became extremely upset when I viewed these pictures. But by the grace of God, my daughter could have been featured in this book. That thought and the pictures of these children absolutely broke my heart. The pictures are beautiful but left me with a sense of helplessness because you can't save them all....although you want to. I returned the book because it was just too upsetting. I was torn between giving the book 5 stars because of the impact it has, but gave it 3 so someone might read this review and think twice about viewing it. It was not worth it for me.
From a parent.......2006-08-05
I purchased this book for my wife as we have adopted a baby girl from China. While these photos are from a different orphanage, the impact is the same. We did not get to see all the children at our daughter's orphanage, and they don't allow photos of the kids anyway. I recommend this book for any adoptive parents of children from China, or those looking into it. I will warn you, you will want to go back for more.
Beautiful & Touching.......2006-04-18
Words can't describe this beautiful little book, filled with beautiful little girls. I especially love the list of their names at the back, as they translate into English, things like Literary Excellence & Radiant Jade. The children do seem sad or at least suspicious of the photographer, and why not? It's probably not every day that some Westerner visits to take pictures. But there is mischief & hope in these little girls' faces, & just affirms my ambition for half my life to adopt from China.
Book Description
As orphan asylums ceased to exist in the late twentieth century, interest in them dwindled as well. Yet, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, America's dependent children--children whose families were unable to care for them--received more aid from orphan asylums than from any other means. This important omission in the growing literature on poverty in America is addressed in Second Home.
As Timothy Hacsi shows, most children in nineteenth-century orphan asylums were "half-orphans," children with one living parent who was unable to provide for them. The asylums spread widely and endured because different groups--churches, ethnic communities, charitable organizations, fraternal societies, and local and state governments--could adapt them to their own purposes.
In the 1890s, critics began to argue that asylums were overcrowded and impersonal. By 1909, advocates called for aid to destitute mothers, and argued that asylums should be a last resort, for short-term care only. Yet orphanages continued to care for most dependent children until the depression strained asylum budgets and federally-funded home care became more widely available. Yet some, Catholic asylums in particular, cared for poor children into the 1950s and 1960s.
At a time when the American welfare state has failed to provide for all needy children, understanding our history in this area could be an important step toward correcting that failure.
Average customer rating:
- Quite a Long Run to the End
- Loved It
- A Religious Experience
- A religious experience
- An Amazing Experience
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The Long Run: A Novel
Leo Furey
Manufacturer: Trumpeter
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Contemporary
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ASIN: 159030411X
Release Date: 2006-11-14 |
Book Description
From a hill above town, the Mount Kildare Orphanage for Boys looks down on the small city of St. John’s, Newfoundland. The year is 1960. The orphanage is always cold, there is never enough to eat, and the Catholic Brothers who run the home are heavy-handed in their religious discourses and harsh in their discipline. Here, a group of boys manages to look out for each other and live by their own set of rules.By day the boys are obedient students, but when the sun goes down the Dare Klub rules the night: raiding the bakery; stealing sacramental wine; and talking endlessly about girls, sex, and the merits of Floyd Patterson versus Willie Mays. Above all, they help each other through the waves of loneliness and sadness that they all experience. Their secret society is their law and their family. But when the Brothers discover the wine is missing, they go on a manhunt, offering payoffs and bribes to any boy who will rat out the culprits.To buck up the frightened boys’ courage, the Dare Klub’s leader, Blackie, creates a program of secret training for the annual St. John's marathon. The boys sneak out at night for running sessions in the hours before morning prayers, devising elaborate rituals to protect their secrecy. Leo Furey has created a classic coming-of-age story of dazzling scope and powerful insight, leavened with razor-sharp wit.
Customer Reviews:
Quite a Long Run to the End.......2007-06-17
Even though I enjoyed the read for most of the way, especially the richness of the characters, I have to say it was a bit drawn out in places and a rather disappointing ending. Therefore only 3 stars.
Loved It.......2007-01-25
Read this book. It's a story about an orphanage in Canada in the 60's. Every sentence will weave its way a little deeper into your heart until the fate of the boys is tantamount to your own. A great story about love, loss and comradery, with some humor folded in to fortify you, Furey develops lovable characters in the voice of a child with the wisdom of an old man.
A Religious Experience.......2005-01-22
Try this one...it's more like a religious experience than reading a novel. Orphans train for a marathon in the bitter cold of a northern winter night as their only way of keeping the light of hope alive in this novel that rages against oppression, lovelessness and cruelty. This is a tender and insightful story of survival, told with compassion, grace, wisdom and humor.
A religious experience.......2005-01-20
Try this one...it's more like a religious experience than reading a novel. Brutally oppressed orphans train in secret for a marathon in the bitter cold of northern winter nights as their only way of keeping the light of hope alive in this novel that rages against oppression, lovelessness and cruelty. A story of survival told with compassion, grace, wisdom and also humor.
An Amazing Experience.......2004-12-26
Most of us would agree that our book budget is much too limited, but the first thing I did when I started to read this book was to buy it for a friend that needed to read it. He attended a Catholic boys' school in New England. I grew up as a ward-of-the-court in the 1950's in a county-run home for girls in NW PA and can recognize the "below the radar" life of the Dare Club boys. They are as vivid in my mind as my long-ago "home sisters." I claim them as the brothers we never had.
If you want a reading experience that lingers in the memory as a real-life experience, this is the book that will do that. You will smile and cry and roll on the floor laughing with the boys. The courage and spiritual bouyancy of youth will refresh your own as they meet both heartbreak and horror head-on, and you will share in their triumph.
Average customer rating:
- Unbelievably believable characters!
- The Wall and the Wing
- Middle grade fantasy novel
- Wild Adventure
- Fast-paced, original, and addicting
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The Wall and the Wing
Laura Ruby
Manufacturer: Eos
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Binding: Hardcover
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Sheep
ASIN: 0060752556
Release Date: 2006-02-28 |
Book Description
In one vast
and sparkling city,
everyone can fly.
Almost everyone.
A few, nicknamed leadfeet, are sentenced by a trick of nature or fate to forever spend their lives closer to the ground. But one night, a girl named Gurl -- a leadfoot, an orphan, a nobody -- discovers that she can do something much better than fly.
She can become invisible.
This amazing power will help her uncover the secret mysteries of the city. But even with her newfound talent, Gurl can't seem to hide from a giant rat man with a taste for cats, a manipulative matron with a penchant for plastic surgery, and a belligerent boy named Bug. Gradually Gurl learns to control her power and teams up with Bug to figure out who and what she is. Their quest will take them on a wild ride through this magical city, where they'll confront chatty birds and mind-bending monkeys, an eccentric genius with a head full of grass and a pocket full of kittens, and the handsome but lethal Sweetcheeks Grabowski -- the gangster who holds the key to Gurl's past . . . and the world's future.
Customer Reviews:
Unbelievably believable characters!.......2007-03-28
A story full of imagination! Beautiful and complete characters and crazy facts all with a purpose. Monkeys, cats, professors, criminals, magic hands, leadfoots, WINGS and WALLS. The magnificent details and atmosphere of a city like New York in a strange future, makes you feel that the city itself is the protagonist of the story... Comparing this book with Harry Potter on the cover is useless marketing that such a great book does not deserve.
(sorry for my english I'm not a native speaker)
antonis, author of children's books, greece
The Wall and the Wing.......2006-07-29
I don't normally read this type of fantasy, but this is one my youngest brother got so I read it. The Wall And The Wing is about a future society (New York where people can fly). Well everyone can fly except Gurl, an orphan who rummages for food in the garbage most nights. Her life changes when she learns she can turn herself invisible, and she uses this power to do all sorts of nastiness.
Middle grade fantasy novel.......2006-07-14
Laura Ruby's middle grade novel combines elements from older, traditional mysteries (an orphanage, poor children finding riches) and as well as modern children's fantasies (e.g. The Thief Lord). I liked that the protagonists were a boy and a girl in an adventure that took them each through their own journey.
Wild Adventure.......2006-04-18
This is a really fast-moving bit of fantasy about a girl who can disappear and a boy who can fly. Together, they zip through a proto-New York. Trees move and mice are as big as humans in this wacky world. But the best part is that a rare and most refined cat is the hero.
Fast-paced, original, and addicting.......2006-03-25
The WALL AND THE WING by Laura Ruby --- also the author of the Edgar-nominated LILY'S GHOSTS --- is an original fantasy filled with colorful characters who inhabit a futuristic New York City. In this world, everyone wants to be a "wing," a person who can fly. Gurl, an orphan at the Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless, is a leadfoot, not a wing.
One evening, while Gurl is out rummaging for food behind a restaurant, she discovers that she can make herself invisible. This talent to become a "wall" is very rare and highly prized in this future world. When her matron, Mrs. Terwiliger, discovers that Gurl can become invisible, she forces her into a life of crime. At first she blackmails the girl into stealing clothing and perfume, and later asks her to hack into computers.
Gurl befriends another orphan nicknamed Bug while she's chasing her cat down the hallway of the orphanage. The boy is named Bug because of his resemblance to a real bug. He and Gurl have something in common --- neither of them knew who they were before they came to Hope House. Bug has some special talents, like being able to pick locks, but he doesn't know why he has these special skills or how he learned them. Bug is Gurl's only friend at Hope House and she helps him discover his talent for flying. Neither of them like living at the orphanage and they want to leave as soon as possible to find out where they belong in the world.
Gurl and Bug decide to run away from the orphanage together. His skill as a flyer and her skill to become invisible complement each other. Together they face a huge cast of characters such as gangsters, giant alligators, human-sized rats, and a zipper-faced monster. Their adventure leads them to discover who they really are and where they belong.
THE WALL AND THE WING is one of the most original stories I have read in a long time. The fast pacing and plot twists will keep you turning pages.
--- Reviewed by Renee Kirchner (renee.kirchner@usa.net)
Book Description
In this first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry returns to her orphanage to remember what it is like and to write a story so that other adopted children will understand where they came from. Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she meets caregivers and befriends children in the city where her life began. This book will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.
Eight-year-old Ying Ying Fry is a Chinese American girl growing up in San Francisco. But her story didn't begin there. Like lots of kids she knows, Ying Ying spent her first months in China--in a birth family she cannot remember and an orphanage in Changsha, Hunan province, where her American parents adopted her when she was a tiny baby.
When Ying Ying goes back to visit Changsha, she can't wait to see her orphanage caregiver--someone who knew her and loved her when she lived in China. Meeting Li Ayi is just the beginning, as Ying Ying discovers points of connection with all the orphanage children--babies, toddlers and school-age kids. Outside the orphanage she visits children at home, at playgrounds and at school, and these friendships too help her see her life story in a new light. A child of two countries, Ying Ying is determined to claim both as her own.
Kids Like Me in China combines real-life photos with the forthright observations and complex feelings of an adopted child as she ponders what her early life might have been like. The first view of China adoption from a child's perspective, Kids Like Me will inspire all adopted children to take charge of their own life stories.
Book Description
Sue Carswell grew up with two families: her own and the one comprised of the orphans living in her backyard. Though the Carswells’ house is on the grounds of the Albany Home for Children, where Sue’s father is an administrator and her mother a nurse, Sue and her four rowdy siblings are not permitted to play with the Home’s young residents. Instead, plagued by irrational fears, Sue observes these troubled souls from a distance. As she watches the orphans come and go, she fantasizes that in their unorthodox world a girl as unusual as she might just fit in.
Racked with insomnia and panic attacks, Carswell feels increasingly out of step with her so-called normal family. While lauded for her exceptional creativity, behind the gregarious mask is a frightened and depressed girl. Throughout her life, she remains fiercely attached to her gentle, compassionate mother who, like the children next door, grew up without parents.
With a structure reminiscent of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, Sue Carswell’s remarkable book skillfully weaves together stories spanning the decades and capturing generations of both the Carswell family and the Albany Home. Curious about the past, Carswell tracks down some of the Home’s previous inhabitants, searching all the while for the ever-elusive happy ending. In the process, she revisits her own turbulent childhood and discovers the parents she never fully understood.
Writing poignantly about the tremendous void left by the death of a mother, Sue Carswell has created an utterly original rendering of family and loss, sharply observed, paradoxically tender, and illuminated by Sue a wry, witty narrative voice.
Faded Pictures from My Backyard parlays the literal orphan into a larger story about one woman’s triumph over fear. A study in emotional dislocation held aloft by humor, this is a stirring narrative about the times that matter most and the connections that last. Above all, this is the affecting tale of the lasting love between a mother and daughter.
Customer Reviews:
Quite a Backyard...........2007-04-04
Sue's father is the Director of a home for disturbed children. It's interesting the expertise and wisdom that he can give to other troubled children, but when it comes to his own daughter, he's in denial. Very candid and extremely well written.
Sue Carswell's Beautiful Backyard.......2006-01-06
Sue Carswell's astonishing, spectacular book is, without a doubt, the most courageous book I have ever read. Carswell opens her heart, her psyche, and her soul to the reader and the world, and does so with monumental skill, humor, and candor. When you finish this book, you feel you know the author better than anyone, other than yourself, because she has revealed herself so generously. What a comfort her struggle with her demons will be to so many people.
I laughed out loud at points and cried (something I haven't done in years while reading a book). Her voice evolves over the course of the narrative and will be in my head for a very long time, maybe forever. So sweet, so sad, so resilient. Ms. Carswell invites readers in to her wirting process in the beginning of this book, and at the end, she brings you back to her flickering computer screen. Even though much of the book is painful to experience, I didn't want it to end and so I read the Acknowledgments as if they were a part of the story and, in a way, they are.
I tried to find one thing I didn't like about this book, but the only thing I was unsure about (the lack of quote marks), I ended up loving. Their absence is liberating.
I recommend this book to absolutely everyone. Put it on the top of your list for 2006.
Beauty in the Backyard.......2005-12-01
The tender love emanating from the pages of this book touch the depths of one's soul. Whether she knows it or not, Ms. Carswell has attained spiritual greatness, although the book does not seem to be written to that end. The love she has for her mother and the empathy she holds for the orphans are the true essence of its beauty.
Reminiscent of the style in which Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, the author so poignantly captures the voice of a child trying to make sense of the sadness which is her backyard; while at the same time she interjects bouts of comic relief that can only come from pure childhood innocence. As she ages in the book her voice does also. It is brilliantly done.
I highly recommend this book. You will cry. You will laugh out loud. And, because Ms. Carswell reveals her heart so openly, you will love.
A Memorable Read -- Do Not Miss.......2005-06-10
Carswell's book is a tremendous, insightful read. There are so many beautiful images and her writing just flows off the pages. The story is captivating and the characters -- her family members -- are honestly drawn and with great humor.
I literally could not put this book down. Not only is the writing fantastic, her changing voice as she matures and ages is something I don't think I've ever experienced as a reader before. The stories themselves are all intertwined and her observations of her mother and her own self-reflection are devastating, moving, hilarious, wrenching, and lovely. It's a wonderfully fascinating story and for anyone who grew up in a large family in the 60s, it is especially fun.
If you want your humanity button pushed!.......2005-06-08
Faded Pictures From My Backyard is the story of the Carswell family, told by oldest daughter Sue, using an age-appropriate child's voice through the years.
The father is an administrator at the Albany Home for Children. The family lived just this side of the home/orphanage-and they never, ever were allowed to interact with the children. The Carswell children never understood the "why" of this rule, and it was described as another "it's complicated" answer to some questions.
The orphans ranged from 6 to 18 (when they left to make their way in the world). The only parents these children knew were the houseparents paid to care for them. How they must have secretly envied the five Carswell children with both a mother and a father, especially at holidays ... and bedtime.
Saturdays the Home's children were dressed in their best hand-me-down clothing to line up and wait for visitors who might be a parent or it might be a new mom and dad come to adopt them. Children were on display every Saturday, and seldom is one selected or even visited.
Some were truly orphans, others relinquished to the home for "adult" reasons, and others became residents because they had mental illness, or considered incorrigible.
The author herself has frequent childhood bouts with anxiety, baseless fears and worry, way beyond a normal child's. We later learn that although her father worked with troubled children - or better said, children with troubles, and the mother was a nurse there, both choose to minimize their daughter's maladies, and not get her treatment.
Her book follows these children and her family as they struggle, learn and grow up. At a 1989 reunion the former Home residents told wonderful stories of hope and love. Some were very successful, others succumb early to depression and misdirection. Some Home children had difficulty when adults because they never learned traditional relationships and what "mother love" is.
The author however has received tremendous "mother love" all her life - and had as one of her fears that her mother Elaine would die when she was young (as her mother had).
The famous quotes used are annotated that each writer also lost one or both parents while young.
The book is a great story as you cheer for them, worry for them, and then grieve with them all. In the 1960s such residential homes still existed. Kind counselors, houseparents and support staff cared for and about these children, and you will too. www.ArmchairInterviews says Faded Pictures From My Backyard is a very worthwhile read if you want your humanity button pushed a couple dozen times.
Average customer rating:
- Good military science fiction
- Starts as a retelling of Starship Troopers and turns into a true homage
- Likeable adventure
- Fun, Heinleinesque Military SciFi
- Damn good read.
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Orphanage
Robert Buettner
Manufacturer: Aspect
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Orphan's Destiny
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Old Man's War
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The Ghost Brigades
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Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book 1)
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Fearless (The Lost Fleet, Book 2)
ASIN: 0446614297 |
Book Description
Description: When earth needs heroes, whom will we call to valor? When flares streaking across the sky herald massive destruction, who will defend us? When mankind's enemy is beyond our worst imagination, who will be our champions? Will we pick the brightest and the toughest? Or the ones with nothing left to lose? Mankind's first alien contact tears into Earth: projectiles launched from Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, vaporize whole cities. Under siege, humanity gambles on one desperate counterstrike. In a spacecraft scavenged from scraps and armed with Vietnam-era weapons, foot soldiers like eighteen-year-old Jason Wander, orphans that no one will miss, must dare man's first interplanetary voyage and invade Ganymede. They have one chance to attack, one ship to attack with. Their failure is our extinction.
Customer Reviews:
Good military science fiction.......2007-03-27
This is a great story about a soldier's journey from trouble kid to national hero. That may sound a little cheesy but that is not the case at all. I'd say you need to be a fan of SciFi, particulary military SF, to truely apreciate this book. If you can get past the fact that the enemies are giant slugs (I'm not kidding), then you should enjoy this book. People who enjoyed starship troopers will probably also enjoy this book, the two are simalar in many ways. the characters were easy to get attached to, and interactions were believable and dramatic (in there own way). The only reason that I didn't give this book five stars was, to me at least, this book lacked that 'can't put the book down page turning sense of urgency to keep reading' that you find in many books in this genre. All in all, you should read this book...
Starts as a retelling of Starship Troopers and turns into a true homage.......2007-03-08
On the front of this book is a quote from Joe Haldeman, the same one that appears in the description above. "Heinlein would have enjoyed this exciting homage to Starship Troopers..." But when I started to read, it seemed more like a retelling than an homage.
Every element that I remember and love from Heinlein's story seemed to have been imported directly into Orphange. The main character is orphaned by an alien attack. During basic training there is a grizzled non-com who takes a liking to him and rescues him from a court martial that could have meant the end of his military career. His best friend from high school is a brilliant and gifted guy who plays an integral role in ending the war. And, most telling of all, the aliens when we meet them are a collective intelligence that do not have individual thoughts or feelings, which makes it easy (and so very, very satisfying) to mow them down in large groups.
But as the book goes on the plot thickens and takes you down a different road. By the time I was on the last chapter I had forgotten any irritation I might have harbored over the parallels between it and Troopers. I thoroughly enjoyed it in the end. Perhaps thirty years from now we will have new military sci-fi novels that are homages to Orphanage!
Likeable adventure.......2007-02-05
This here's a rather likeable, if predictable, military scifi adventure. The main charactor, Jason Wander, is pretty solid and I'll look forward to reading more of his future adventures. Not nearly as good as John Scalzi's "Old Mans War" but light entertaining reading.
Fun, Heinleinesque Military SciFi.......2006-11-24
ORPHANAGE(2004) is written in the vein of Robert Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, and John Varley's RED THUNDER.
The book's main character is Jason Wander, who is given a military option instead of jail, when he starts to become rebellious in a foster home situation, after his sole remaining relative has been killed in one of the projectile strikes against Earth's cities by aliens who are intent on taking over Earth for their uses. After a eventful boot camp experience, Wander is assigned to support a Division of Space-Faring Infantry "Orphans" to try to save humanity by exacting revenge on the aliens whose base of activities has been tracked to the Jupiter moon Ganymede.
ORPHANAGE is a fun and quick read, but at times is a bit unbelievable, unscientific and semi-juvenile.
I give this book 3+ stars. I've started reading the sequel ORPHANS DESTINY, and I'm so far finding it to be a more mature offering.
Damn good read........2006-11-04
I have heard it said that all of the current fantasy fiction is from authors who needed more hobbits and dwarves and wizards. That they could not accept the loss of Tolkien. I have never been able to accept the loss of Johnny Rico, Carmen, Sgt. Zim and the Roughnecks. I have not been able to accept the loss of Robert Heinlein and now I don't have to.
Mr Buettner has given us a homage to "Starship Troopers". Yes, it is derivative and I can see Rico, Raezcak, Zim and the others in this novel. Since Heinlein didn't give us the rest of the story Buettner has. I would classify this as juvenile fiction in the same vein as Heinlein's juveniles. He has different characters in a different unvierse but is telling the same story. Not of glory, but of sacrifice. Not of great ideals, but of the man next to you and the unit you live with.
And he is going to tell us more.
Good enough for me.
Customer Reviews:
From a county child-placement worker........2007-05-06
Richard McKenzie's stellar book, "Home," is a personal treasure and a vital tool in persuading my Probation and Social Services coworkers, along with County Supervisors and Judges, to look at orphanages as a way of rescuing disadvantaged children from a faulty foster-care system and to provide safety and security for the astounding numbers of homeless children. Homeless children are nearly invisible --like baby pigeons, we never see them, yet we know they exist --an estimated 300 in my community alone. Dr. McKenzie describes a system in which there is tremendous hope. Another of his brilliant books is "Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century." I encourage all to read his writings and to speak up.
Don't throw out the baby with the bath water.......2007-01-29
This book tells of an unfortunate child, which overcame many misfortunes to become a successful man. It is a must read for child care professionals. They need to know that there is another way of raising children. There is an old Southern saying "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water". The professionals in the child care field did throw out the baby. The water could have been improved in the institutions but the decision was made that all institutions were bad.
McKenzie's book tells the life of one boy in an orphanage that can be multiplied many times by those with less ability to write well. The present system sometimes asks children what they want. They almost always want to stay with family, which does not mean they should. In my case, in an orphanage not far from the author's, we did not take criticism personally since there were so many of us. The "self-esteem" movement in education could learn from this.
Historically, to change children's lives and sometimes society, one has gone to institutional homes of some type. The Communist, Nazi's and American government with American Indians, all did this in one way or another. These methods have good and bad points. Society needs to learn the good points. This book can help.
An intriguing argument..........2007-01-17
In today's society, there are thousands of children in the foster care system, who meet terrible fates. They are either unable to be placed; suffer physical, sexual or emotional abuse at the hands of their new "family"; or else get sent back to their biological parents, only to continue suffering. Countless other children remain with parents who don't want or can't take adequate care of them, only to become statastics.
In the 1950s, when author Richard McKenzie was 10, he and his older brother were sent to the local orphanage. Their parents, both alcoholics, had divorced when Dickie was five. Their mother ended up committing suicide, and their father was just plain unstable. Numerous relatives, who claimed to love the boys, made transparent excuses for why they could not take the children in; and before they knew it, they were wards of the state.
McKenzie describes conditions that would nearly be considered abuse by today's standards - lots of hard physical labor on the orphanage farm; a sparse diet; no pillows; infrequent baths and clothing changes. But overall, the 200 children who resided at The Home, as McKenzie refers to it, were content. For the most part, they had memories of a far worse existence, and they were in no hurry to return to it. For few of the children were true "orphans"; most had one living parent, if not both. In many cases, the children were simply given up due to household finances, neglect or abuse. So, no matter what The Home was like, it at least gave the children stability and some sort of moral upbringing, something to give them a boost into the world after they turned 18.
It is for this reason that McKenzie supports orphanages, and wishes for them to return. He strongly believes the foster care system is not nearly as effective; and so to make even a dent in helping today's troubled families, the answer may lie in returning to the ways of the past.
Fellow orphan.......2006-09-26
Richard McKenzie's presentation of his experience being reared in an orphange is certainly on point. His represents the early life travels of many children in need of a home in the first half century of our country. The lifetime benefits he received as a student resident of the Home are invaluable to his successes achieved in his professional endeavors. As so many of his contemporaries reared in an orphanage demonstrate, they are proven, productive and responsible members of their respective communities. I share in McKenzie's deep feelings for his Home and the wonderful memories he expresses in tales some tall but all true; for I should know, I was there too!
Compelling book.......2006-09-18
The Home by Richard McKenzie is a compelling book that I highly recommend. Life has not been easy for McKenzie. At age ten, after his incompetent, alcoholic parents were no longer capable of providing even a modicum of care McKenzie was placed in an orphanage where he remained until finishing high school. The book is mostly an account of his years in an orphanage, and he does not sugar coat the experience. It was tough, much tougher than what he would have experienced if he had been raised in a stable family environment. But for whatever its faults, the Home was caring. McKenzie makes a very credible case that orphanages offer a viable alternative to today's system of foster care where children are often mistreated and robbed of the chance of developing the skills needed to become successful adults. He documents that many of the children who grew up in the Home have done very well and are respected citizens in their communities and in some cases beyond. In fact, Richard McKenzie went on to become an internationally recognized economist.
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