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"Were all just somebody else's kids . . . "
A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words . . . A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read . . . A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another . . . A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant . . .
"What do we matter?"
"Why do you care?"
They were four problem children-put in Torey Hayden's class because no one else knew what to do with them. Together, with the help of a remarkable teacher who cared too much to ever give up, they became almost a family, able to give each other the love and understanding they had found nowhere else.
Somebody Else's Kids Reviews
Somebody Else's Kids Reviews
| 42 of 50 people found the following review helpful  IN THE INTEREST OF FAIRNESS, By This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) This book is yet another outstanding account of Ms. Hayden's work with children. The children assigned to her resource room featured in this book are a 12-year-old girl who is pregnant; an 11-year-old boy who witnessed the murder of his father; a 7-year-old girl whose father battered her during her infancy causing severe brain damage and a 7-year-old boy whose behavior is described as autistic.In the interest of fairness, there is really no way for readers to "know" or declare how "pretty" any of the pupils are; this is not the place to proclaim "favorite pupils." Responding to the individual gifts each pupil had to offer is the underlying theme of this book. "Somebody Else's Kids" chronicles the lives of real people that most readers don't even know. In the interest of fairness, without personally knowing the teacher assigned to Lori, the 7-year-old, it is very easy to make a strong case against her based on her response to this child's academic needs. Early in the... Read more 29 of 34 people found the following review helpful  Unforgettable, By S.J. (Up north) - See all my reviews This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) Somebody Else's Kids was the first book I read of Torey Hayden's. Since then, I have read her statement that this is the one book of hers that she cannot bear to reread as it was penned quickly and she doesn't like the writing.Maybe it was this perceived lack of "attention" to the writing dynamics that makes this book a little different than her others, and to me, a little more memorable. When looking into Ms. Hayden's works, the one most often cited is One Child. I have read this, as well as others such as The Tiger's Child and Ghost Girl, but Somebody Else's Kids just has a different feel to me - less forced, less heroic, just her work with very different children put together in the same classroom. The cases she refers to in this book are also quite different from the others she writes about (ie. elective mutism, autism), this time dealing with pre-teen pregnancy and illiteracy brought on by brain damage. It's a refreshing change from her other works and just as... Read more 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful somebody else's kids, By This review is from: Somebody Else's Kids (Paperback) Torey Hayden, author of "One Child," charts a year in the life of a special education classroom with some unusual and unforgettable students. They include Claudia, an academically gifted, pregnant twelve-year-old; Tomaso, who witnessed the death of his father; Lori, a girl whose abuse left her unable to read and write; and Boo, an autistic boy with a fondness for giving weather reports. How they bond, become a class, and deal with the largely unsympathetic outside world makes for a remarkable story. Even more gratifying is the epilogue, in which we learn that all four made gains after they graduated from Hayden's class, all quite remarkably. |
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