Monday, July 19, 2010

"Beautiful Child" by Torey Hayden

WOW! A really GREAT BOOK! My favorite of her books. Cried at the end.

In Beautiful Child Torey Hayden shares about her challenging special ed class and how the teacher struggled throughout the year and turned it around. Venus was the most challenging of all because had very serious abuse in the home and was mostly unresponsive except when attacking other kids when they accidentally bumped her. Finally got the help she needed after the hospital treated her for hypothermia, had to amputate her toes, and found 22 broken bones that had healed or were in various stages of healing. 

It also revealed the struggle Torey had with her aide who was totally on a different page philosophically and really undermined what she was trying to do.
Some of the things teacher did that worked was behavior modification with traffic lights, singing between activities or to refocus kids when they started fighting, closed eye journey, special one-on-one time at recess with Venus —held her on her lap.

(Karen's review 9/05)

Please tell us: What categories of literature do you like? What are you reading now? Who are your top five favorite authors? Have you read this one? What did you think of it?

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