"Miracles can happen for the most hopeless lost causes"

books:


	• Just Another Kid Torey L. Hayden Putnam Adult, 1988 - 318 pages average customer review:based on 30 reviews
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highly recommended

This kid's unlike any other...

Special needs teacher Torey Hayden brings us the story of another year in her classroom -- this time with an aide who's got emotional problems of her own.

Ladbrooke Taylor, mother of severely autistic Leslie, is a beautiful woman with a PhD. Yet beneath that, she struggles with alcoholism, promiscuity, low self-esteem, a crumbling marriage and a difficult child. Most mornings, she tells Torey, it's all she can do to get out of bed.

Despite Torey's initial misgivings, Lad soon becomes an integral part of the classroom. She learns to work with the children - sisters Shemona and Geraldine, and their cousin Shamie, all victims of the violence in Northern Ireland; schizophrenic, severely abused Dirkie; sexually precocious, academically lagging Mariana; and her own Leslie.

This book is unlike Hayden's others, as the focus is largely on Ladbrooke instead of the children (though there is a fair amount on their progress as well). Some readers might not like the story as well, if they are accustomed to, and prefer, hearing about troubled children. However, in many ways, Lad is indeed "just another kid."

When the school year ends, there are no neat, happy endings. Although just about everyone has made some sort of progress with their individual issues, it would be unrealistic to expect students placed in a self-contained classroom to suddenly achieve total normalcy.

In the case of Torey and Ladbrooke, however, they progress from Ladbrooke's being "just another kid" to true equal friends -- a relationship they have maintained in all the years since.

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"Miracles can happen for the most hopeless lost causes"

I am also the mother of a "Special Needs" child; I happened to discover "Twilight Children", Torey Hayden's most recent book by chance in a local bookstore. I was spellbound and couldn't put it down, and when I had read that book, I ordered everything else she ever wrote from Amazon (how's that for a recommendation?). This book, (and I say this without exaggeration) literally made me gasp at some parts and cry at some others. This is a book that I feel would be of value to parents of special needs children, but also to members of Alcoholics Anonymous, or anyone who believes (or wants to believe) that miracles can still happen to the most hopeless of "lost causes".

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Excellent! I think Torey Hayden is a genius novelist!

This book was fantastic. I had only read one of Haydens books previous to this one but you can be assured that I will have to get my hands on her whole collection.

Just Anothr Kid

I loved this book and the way Torey Hayden treats these special children. I have read all of her books and liked every one.
She just have been put on this earth for what she does for these children. Excellent writing.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle-three recent arrivals from battletorn Northern Ireland, badly traumatized by the horrors of war; eleven-year-old Dirkie, who only knew of life inside an institution; excitable Mariana, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak.

With compassion, rare insight, and masterful storytelling, teacher Torey L. Hayden once again touches our hearts with her account of the miracles that can happen in her class of "special" children.

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