Momaholic Book Review

Momaholic  by Dena Higley

Every mom has felt the need to be perfect.

MOMAHOLIC is one woman’s private, dramatic, and often comical invitation to peek inside a time in her life when everything fell apart, causing her to take an honest look at what she was doing right and what she’d been doing terribly wrong. With this discovery, her wacky family’s season of becoming unraveled found a new glue that would re-bond her family and unite them in a deeper and more functional way than ever before.

The real life characters: A MOM who is literally the head writer of a network soap opera … at work and at home; A HUSBAND who can’t help but scratch his head in frustration as his family’s troubles seem to spiral out of his control; an autistic SON; a popular DAUGHTER who is suddenly pregnant; an ADOPTED DAUGHTER pulled from the jungles of Vietnam; and an ADOPTED SON rescued from the streets of Ethiopia.

This is a story showing the speed with which a “normal” family can fall apart. With the family running around as the tornado sirens roared warnings to take cover, mom becomes the biggest mess of all and ends up finding a whole new freedom for her soul. www.netgalley.com

Dena who was a head writer for Days of our lives is also a self-admitted helicopter mom. Her story opens with the crash of her helicopter. This is her story. What happens when someone takes on too much and stops taking care of themselves.

By far Dena does not see herself as a martyr, who gave everything up for her children and in return had a breakdown.  She sees it differently. While she could say having an autistic son, a pregnant daughter, another disabled daughter, and a son from the streets of Ethiopia was the cause of her breakdown she does not. Actually she very openly says they had nothing to do with it, that this breakdown was all on her. Her children play a minor role in this story, yes she talks about them. How her oldest has autism and is a college student and some of the things he has done. Her other son is running a soda ring at school, one daughter is pregnant, and the other has just had another surgery. 

Through the course of her story she learns that even if she says no the PTA will still function, the school will not close, and life will continue.  Not only was she a helicopter mom she became a helicopter grandma as well trying to be her grandchild’s second mom. Once she stepped back and took a break, she could see her grandchild did not need a second mom but a grandma. As soon as she realized this she could stop trying to raise her grandchild and enjoy being a grandma.

This book will be released on May 1, 2012. You can put it on preorder at many major bookstores.

Anything But Typical

 Anything but Typical                                 By: Nora Baskin

This is what I got from Roger on this book.

Main Characters:

Jason:  A autistic kid who writes books.

Story Line:

He writes stories and goes to a writing convention.  He has a hard time fitting in. He has a little brother, goes to his cousin’s house and gets in trouble. He has his own laptop. He liked the book and he would read it again.

This book is on our school districts summer reading list.

So let me help you out a bit I did not read it but here is a summary from Amazon.com

Product Description

Jason Blake is an autistic 12-year-old living in a neurotypical world. Most days it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong. But Jason finds a glimmer of understanding when he comes across PhoenixBird, who posts stories to the same online site as he does. Jason can be himself when he writes and he thinks that PhoneixBird-her name is Rebecca-could be his first real friend. But as desperate as Jason is to met her, he's terrified that if they do meet, Rebecca wil only see his autism and not who Jason really is. By acclaimed writer Nora Raleigh Baskin, this is the breathtaking depiction of an autistic boy's struggles-and a story for anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4–7—Baskin writes in the voice of a high-functioning boy who identifies himself as having numerous disorders, most with labels that appear as alphabet soup. In the third grade, after yet another battery of tests, Jason receives the diagnosis of autism. Now in sixth grade, he relates how he does not fit in, even though he tries to follow the instructions of his therapists and helpers. He labels the rest of his classmates and teachers as neurotypicals, or NTs for short. While humor resonates throughout the book, the pathos of Jason's situation is never far from readers' consciousness. If only he could act on what he knows he needs to do, his life would be so much easier. Jason also shows himself to be a deep thinker and an excellent writer. Through his stories and thinly veiled fictional characters, Baskin reveals not only the obstacles that Jason faces, but also his fierce determination to be himself at all costs. Jason is a believable and empathetic character in spite of his idiosyncrasies. Baskin also does a superb job of developing his parents and younger brother as real people with real problems, bravely traversing their lives with a differently abled child without a road map, but with a great deal of love.—Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Asbergers Downloaded

This is one of Rogers new books.  He likes that it is set up like a dictionary and explains things like bullying, friends, chat rooms, apologies, alcohol, and family in a easy to read and understand format. you can click here to see an example of the book. It is meant for teenagers but Roger understands what most of it is saying.
The definitions in the book are given by a mother and son.  They each give there own take on what something like "Apology" means. Not only does it describe what it is but says that you should accept and no one will see you as less of a person if you apologize yourself.