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Title: Life As We Know It : A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child by Michael Berube ISBN: 0-679-75866-6 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 March, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent book on the disabled in modern society
Comment: This book works best as memoir. Berube is very moving when he describes the first years of his son's life. I too am the father of a boy with Down's syndrome and can vouch for the clarity and truthfulness of the account. The book's many digressions into politics and philosophy could put off some readers, but most of them are well-worth reading and pondering. I only wish they hadn't interrupted the flow of the personal story. The only sidebar I really disagreed with was the one on abortion. It was too strident (Berube is pro-choice), especially coming from someone well-placed to see both sides of this issue. That said, I would recommend this book to any parent of a mentally retarded child, or, for that matter, to any citizen concerned about the place of disabled people in our society. I hope Berube writes another book ten years from now and lets us know how Jamie is doing.
Rating: 4
Summary: A moving story of a father and his special son
Comment: Michael Berube's Life As We Know It is both one parent's memoir of raising a Down Syndrome boy and a larger exploration of how our society views those different from the "norm." Berube and his wife had no idea their second child would be "disabled" at birth, and much of the book recounts their joy and struggles in raising Jamie, a very unique and special boy. However, Berube's book also has a larger purpose and context. He tackles how our society labels persons like Jamie, and how this use of language influences the child's outcome. For example, in the early part of this century, the common medical name for Jamie's condition was "Mongoloid idiot." This term certainly expressed what society thought such children were capable of; predictably, the common medical strategy was to give up on these children, institutionalize them, and move on. With the passage of time, terminology has changed, and Berube argues that this change both reflects and directs society's view of its members.
The biggest struggle for Berube as a parent, and for us I believe as a society, is to get beyond -- or change entirely -- the labels given and focus on the persons and capacities behind such monikers. Berube's son, like my three (fortunately not "differently abled") children, is a unique person, and to overemphasize the name given to his condition (or the stereotypes invariably called forth) is to shortchange both Jamie, his parents, and all of us. Berube sensibly does not argue that Jamie would be without problems if everyone failed to name his condition. He makes plain, however, that there is more to destiny and parenting than name-calling. A very important and moving book.
Rating: 3
Summary: More essay compilation than memoir on Down's son
Comment: The rating I gave the book is an average of two seperate ratings. As a book of essays on everything from abortion to the state of education in the United States, Berube's book would rate five stars as a memoir by a father on a son with Down's Syndrome it rates two stars.
In fact we hear very little about Jamie Berube throughout this book. Yes, he pops up from time to time, but only to serve as a springboard for his father's rants on subject after subject.
Certainly the elder Berube's essays are thoughtful and insightful, but this is not the book I was looking to read. I find it misleading in the way that it is packaged as a memoir. Perhaps the publisher should rethink this, sell it as an essay collection, and then I would review it as a five star book.
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Title: Choosing Naia : A Family's Journey by Mitchell Zuckoff ISBN: 0807028177 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract by Marta Russell ISBN: 1567511066 Publisher: Common Courage Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen ISBN: 0679746048 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 19 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto ISBN: 0385333277 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 29 December, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity (Cultural Front Series) by Simi Linton ISBN: 0814751342 Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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