Wow - that was amazing, but even as I was reading through it, I immediately understood this was my first read of it, and that I needed to read it again, and in the format that I had originally intended.
This book hails from 2012, and yet it is surprisingly up to date. The book speaks about exceptional children who are "Far From the Tree". The first chapter is Deaf, the next is Dwarfs. The book describes Autism, Transgender, Schizophrenia, Down's Disabilities, Rape, Crime, and Prodigies. As well as covering many more areas where parents have had to make incredibly difficult life changes and attitude changes and strategies to manage the incomprehensible. Many of us are thinking about books with an angle of moral dilemmas, and this one would fit. It is an inescapable piece of the work. It is written by Andrew Solomon, who is also Gay and Jewish, but by the end of the book, his last chapter follows his own parenting journey, which followed this huge project of the most difficult situations imaginable. And he still pursued the incredible obstacles for a gay man to father a child in 2011-2012. It was the perfect ending for an incredibly profound read.
The book I had thought was 900 pages and has sat on my TBR endlessly. But its actually 702, as over 200 pages are the References and Research. Put that is still quite the packed profound doorstop. It has languished there forever. My original plan, was to read it slowly and over time with my friend Cindy who is also a psychologist and great thinker. We thought that one up together in the early days of my/our Book Club, as a side project she and I would do. But I opened up the book without her (after all it had been over a decade), because of the PBT Birthday Candle Challenge. Despite being one of the busiest people I know, and that I was throwing a bar mitzvah and getting my second kid into college, I had the crazy delusion that I would be the first one in the group to finish the challenge. I am more like the fourth. But I had known from the outset, Far From the Tree would be the big challenge. It satisfies candle number 7 - Read something from the top 100 PBT Non-Fiction.
From the moment I opened the pages, I knew I had to return to this in a deeper way, again with Cindy, but also maybe with others. These are thoughtful conversations that need to be had. In my mind I was enevisioning a small group of invitation only folks, that included other clinicians, or folks with special needs kids or both, who might join us for some of these chapters, but that maybe we would meet a few times a year and to one of them at a time. See who might join us. But these are profound and important conversations, and the women in my mind are the wisest women I know. Cindy said she would return to reading this with me and potentially others. But I knew I needed to finish this for the candle.
Wow - just wow. There is almost too much to say, but it indeed deserves to be on the top 100 Fiction List. Someone in my Goodreads Main Group said that as an educator, she believes it should be required reading. That is spot on, and for more than one profession. Its culturally timely, and has been for a very long time. This is for people who care about thoughtfulness around marginalized populations, and families where the unexpected changes the course of a life. It's for all of us and highlights an often invisible struggle. Its an important and profound book. And as I've said, I'm not just glad I read it. That was simply my first read. And its a not to be missed.
This book hails from 2012, and yet it is surprisingly up to date. The book speaks about exceptional children who are "Far From the Tree". The first chapter is Deaf, the next is Dwarfs. The book describes Autism, Transgender, Schizophrenia, Down's Disabilities, Rape, Crime, and Prodigies. As well as covering many more areas where parents have had to make incredibly difficult life changes and attitude changes and strategies to manage the incomprehensible. Many of us are thinking about books with an angle of moral dilemmas, and this one would fit. It is an inescapable piece of the work. It is written by Andrew Solomon, who is also Gay and Jewish, but by the end of the book, his last chapter follows his own parenting journey, which followed this huge project of the most difficult situations imaginable. And he still pursued the incredible obstacles for a gay man to father a child in 2011-2012. It was the perfect ending for an incredibly profound read.
The book I had thought was 900 pages and has sat on my TBR endlessly. But its actually 702, as over 200 pages are the References and Research. Put that is still quite the packed profound doorstop. It has languished there forever. My original plan, was to read it slowly and over time with my friend Cindy who is also a psychologist and great thinker. We thought that one up together in the early days of my/our Book Club, as a side project she and I would do. But I opened up the book without her (after all it had been over a decade), because of the PBT Birthday Candle Challenge. Despite being one of the busiest people I know, and that I was throwing a bar mitzvah and getting my second kid into college, I had the crazy delusion that I would be the first one in the group to finish the challenge. I am more like the fourth. But I had known from the outset, Far From the Tree would be the big challenge. It satisfies candle number 7 - Read something from the top 100 PBT Non-Fiction.
From the moment I opened the pages, I knew I had to return to this in a deeper way, again with Cindy, but also maybe with others. These are thoughtful conversations that need to be had. In my mind I was enevisioning a small group of invitation only folks, that included other clinicians, or folks with special needs kids or both, who might join us for some of these chapters, but that maybe we would meet a few times a year and to one of them at a time. See who might join us. But these are profound and important conversations, and the women in my mind are the wisest women I know. Cindy said she would return to reading this with me and potentially others. But I knew I needed to finish this for the candle.
Wow - just wow. There is almost too much to say, but it indeed deserves to be on the top 100 Fiction List. Someone in my Goodreads Main Group said that as an educator, she believes it should be required reading. That is spot on, and for more than one profession. Its culturally timely, and has been for a very long time. This is for people who care about thoughtfulness around marginalized populations, and families where the unexpected changes the course of a life. It's for all of us and highlights an often invisible struggle. Its an important and profound book. And as I've said, I'm not just glad I read it. That was simply my first read. And its a not to be missed.