The Sunday Salon used to be a meme but was getting so huge it became unmanageable, so it is now a Facebook group that has become an informal week in review
gathering place for bloggers.
It is also a place to share our thoughts about things of a bookish nature.
The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by
Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer
~ It’s a chance to share news~
A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.
Almost all of the snow is melted in our yard and it is almost time for the Spring Sock Pickup Day. We have two Border Collie/Blue Heller mix dogs that are sisters, Oreo and Nera. Nera looks more like the Blue Heeler with her blonde coat. She also has a thing for socks. We cannot leave them anywhere. She grabs them right out of the laundry baskets. She is always carrying one around and several go outside with her in the winter and are lost in the snow. Each Spring we go out and collect them and either wash them up for her again or trash them. Of course she tries to rescue them herself. These are the kind of days were she brings the frozen, wet and sometimes muddy ones back in the house with her.
Weekly Rewind – March 24 – 29, 2014
Monday – It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
Tuesday – Review – Jailhouse Glock by Lizbeth Lipperman – Release Date: May 8, 2014
Wednesday – Cozy Wednesday with Alyssa Maxwell – Author of Murder at the Breakers (Giveaway too!)
Thursday – Review – Inherit The Word by Daryl Wood Gerber
Friday – Review: The Alpine Yeoman by Mary Daheim
Saturday – Spotlight/Giveaway – Why Kings Confess by C.S. Harris
Retarded Girl Raised in Dog Pen: Authorities Say Girl Witness to Murder
Just one book came in this week and I reading it right away. The title turned me off and I almost turned down the review request until I read the synopsis:
Baby is every adoptive parent’s nightmare—blind, paralyzed from the waist down, unable to speak, and diagnosed with developmental and intellectual disabilities. For the first 10 years of her life she is raised outside in a dog pen by a cruel adoptive father, a Mississippi deputy sheriff who values his bird dogs more than his daughter.
Retarded Girl Raised in Dog Pen is the story of Baby’s placement in a Mississippi mental institution for individuals with profound retardation after the brutal murder of her father and the arrest of her mother, and her desperate attempt to escape the institution.
Once the mother is convicted of murder and sentenced to death, the story takes a bizarre twist as mental health professions discover that Baby is capable of communication, despite being trapped inside a grotesque body that holds her prisoner.
How much does Baby know? Can she prove her mother’s innocence?
As the mother sits on death row, the clock ticking, a brilliant psychologist has the shock of her life when she discovers that Baby is not who she seems. The question is will the psychologist be able to solve the mystery in time to save the mother’s life?
Similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the manner in which it reveals the inner workings of a mental institution, it is, in the end, about the triumph of intellect and passion over indifference and cruelty. It is written in the tradition of The Sound and the Fury and To Kill a Mockingbird, two novels that address the complex issue of intellectual disabilities.
This story peaked my interest for two reasons:
1. I am a woman living with a disability. Maybe not as serious as the child in the story but I do sometimes feel as if my body is holding me prisoner.
2. My daughter works for the State of Wisconsin at a center for developmentally, emotionally, and physically disabled. This is a center where people are sent after every other avenue has been tried and failed. People who families cannot take care of them anymore. She takes care of all their personal care needs and spends 8 -16 hours a day with her clients working with a myriad of different behaviors. Some days are pretty normal, but most days she is hit, bit, spit on, and worse. She has been tackled my one client and injured her knee and required weeks of rehab. Through it all she loves her job and and her clients. It takes a special person to do this kind of work and she is not going to get rich doing it. Truthfully with all the political maneuvers in Wisconsin the past couple of years she has lost a lot of her benefits and wages have been frozen and she works crazy long shifts. She could probably make more at McDonald’s but loves helping these people. She hopes to go back to school someday to become a therapist or social worker to help these people on a different level. I plan to share this book with her if it ends the way I hope it does.
There are only 2 reviews for this book on Amazon and they are not good but I am going to give the book a try in hopes that I am coming at from a different angle than those reviewers but believe me if it is a bad as they say I will not hold back in my review. I will let you know next week.
Until then I hope you find time to Escape Into A Good Book!!!
Looking forward to your review.
I want to read Murder at the Breakers to start that new series. It sounds like a lovely setting for a cozy!
As far as “Retarded Girl” book, why oh why did the author use that title I wonder. I guess to pull in people and get attention for a little-known book, but still.. I have to admit the story sounds interesting, but I’m not sure about it. I will check back for your review. I am disabled also, though not severely, and I used to work in Special Ed with the most needful level of mentally/physically challenged children, so that term makes me cringe.
Thanks for sharing all these titles with us! Good week for you.
I think I will have to read that book as well. I worked in an “ICF” (Intermediate Care Facility) for adults with mental retardation and development disabilities for four years. My heart and best wishes go out to your daughter. Despite the injuries I received while there, I would go back again … almost exclusively for the residents. I maintain to this day, despite the various hardships of working there, including a mini-stroke from stress, it has been the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had.
Also not thrilled with the name of the book. There were surely other ways that could have been phrased that did not use the “R” word, which so many of us find offensive.
Sometimes a treasure lurks inside a book that sounds very dark….hope you find it! Enjoy your reading…and here’s MY WEEKLY SUNDAY/MONDAY UPDATES
I agree about the title! I look forward to your review.
The title is off-putting enough that I would never pick is up without someone’s recommendation.
I did turn down that request. The title was a huge turn off and the blurb sounds exploitative. I look forward to your review.