Tag: homelessness

Rock Needs River

~ rachelbenzine ~ 1 Comment

Review:

Vanessa McGrady was pretty sure she wanted to be a mom… eventually. Before she knew it, she was in her forties and realized that she was ready to have a baby. After miscarriages and infertility struggles, she decided she would be open to adoption. It took a two-year journey, but she describes the adoption of her daughter, Grace, as a miracle. And when Grace’s biological parents experienced homelessness, Vanessa invited them to stay with her. Rock Needs River is McGrady’s memoir about family, in biological and adoptive and non-traditional forms.

My husband and I are planning to adopt children one day, so I have been devouring all the books I can find for the last couple years about adoption. The concept of Rock Needs River caught my attention right away, and I couldn’t wait to read it. It was a very quick read – I read it on a flight from Minneapolis to Orlando. Although it focused more on McGrady’s life than I had originally thought from reading the description (with almost half describing Vanessa’s pre-adoption life, and the rest discussing her adoption journey and post-adoption life), I still enjoyed this book.

Favorite Passage:

I knew from all my adoption training and subsequent learning that the original separation wound is something that heals to various degrees in different people, but it is always there – I could never truly, entirely remove the scar Grace carries from growing inside one mother and being handed to another. But I spend every moment of every day wanting to be the biggest star in her life. The one who loves her the most. The one she loves the most. It is torture for me to imagine my life without her, or hers without me.
— Chapter Thirteen

What I Loved Most:

McGrady says that this book is a love letter to her daughter, chronicling the journey of Grace becoming part of her family. She shares the good parts of her and Grace’s relationships with Grace’s biological parents, as well as the tough parts of having an open adoption. At the conclusion of the book, McGrady is no longer in contact with Grace’s biological parents, but she says that she is open to reconnecting with them in the future. The relationship between adoptive parents and biological parents in an open adoption can be messy and hard and beautiful, and I appreciate McGrady not shying away from describing the tough moments as well as the great moments.

Read this book if you like:

Stories about non-traditional families, memoirs, learning about parenthood, understanding why people make the decisions they do

Book Details:

Sorta Like a Rockstar

~ rachelbenzine ~ Leave a comment

Review:

Amber and her mom are temporarily homeless – just until her mom can find them a place to stay, which she keeps promising will be soon. In the mean time, they’re sleeping in the school bus that her mom drives. Amber’s group of friends are the other kids who don’t quite fit in at her school – a kid who uses a wheelchair and his brother, a kid with Autism, and the only African American kid in the whole school. The rest of the cast includes her lovable dog, a Vietnam vet with a passion for green tea and haikus, and a smart, strong lawyer who won’t give up on Amber.

In this book, we walk with Amber through the halls of her school, seeing the people who love her and the people who don’t acknowledge she exists. We see Amber’s relentless positivity being challenged when tragedy hits her life. We watch Amber slide into depression. We feel her friends and the caring adults in her life come alongside her to help her get back on her feet. Sorta Like a Rock Star doesn’t pull any punches – it shows what it’s like to experience homelessness, to go through grief, to be depressed, and to have to figure out how to keep going.

Favorite Passage:

We’re celebrating our freedom. We’re celebrating our ability to be kids when everything is trying to take that away from us. It’s a choice, Ty. We can do whatever we want.
– Chapter 59

What I Loved Most:

I came across Sorta Like a Rock Star while planning a social justice book club for teens, and loved the way it showcased homelessness and mental illness in a real way. A 2017 study found that over the course of a 12 month period, one out of every thirty kids aged 13-17 in America experienced homelessness. That’s about 700,000 high school kids who were homeless over the year that they measured. Homelessness is a real problem facing so many of our students, and I appreciate the way this book shines a light on what it’s like to be a homeless student.

Read this book if you like:

Unique protagonists, accurate portrayals of homelessness, creating a family of choice

Book Details: