Special Gifts
Compelling essays by ADHD families trying to survive.
Edited by Arlene Schusteff
WyattMacKenzie; $15
Purchase Special Gifts
Not every parent of a child with attention deficit disorder (ADD ADHD) will relate to the state-of-emergency home life described in the essays collected in this book, but most have experienced the bewilderment and social isolation of raising a child who doesn’t fit in.
I enjoyed the totally raw eruptions of confusion, despair, anger, fear, and politically incorrect humor in Special Gifts. One mother describes “the urge to take a real walkabout-the kind that makes the network news at 6 and 10 p.m.” “Heartbreaking is the one word that pretty much sums up life with my son,” writes another. These women aren’t going gently into the night of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual; they’re just trying to survive.
