Customer Reviews

Beautiful Child

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When author Torey Hayden first meets Venus, then 7, the child is perched atop a high wall on the school playground. Venus rarely speaks and goes into attack mode when jostled by other children on the playground. Venus remains a silent observer in the class she shares with 9-year-old Billy, a gifted child with a minor case of dyslexia and a propensity for impulsive behavior; 8-year-old Jesse, a boy who has Tourette's Syndrome; 6-year-old twins Shane and Zane who have the congenital condition of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and part-time resource pupils 8-year-old Gwennie, a bright girl whose behavior and verbalizations are described as autistic and 8-year-old Alice, also given to frequent non sequitors interspersed with very poignant comments.

This group finally unites after a series of setbacks. Early in the year, fighting broke out contantly among the boys; Venus, too displayed a fair share of aggression whenever she attacked someone who bumped into her. The tension among the pupils was paralleled in Torey Hayden's differing educational approaches with her aide, Julie.

Matters reach a critical head when Venus is placed on homebound instruction for 2 months after she severely injures another child. During her absence, the boys team up by forming the poignantly ironic named group, "the Chipmunks" as a way of helping one another and gaining positive reinforcement. When Venus returns, she literally has to start from scratch. A chance encounter with a 1980s comic figure, She-Ra, sparks her curiosity; from there, Venus and teacher Torey Hayden knock down yet another wall. Venus expresses her wishes for a better life and for power and a "magic sword" like She-Ra has; she begins to inch her way into the group.

More walls are knocked down; Julie is transferred to another school and an aide named Rosa takes her place. Rosa and Venus bond instantly; the love between them is truly heartwarming. The boys make remarkable strides as well. In one especially touching exchange, Billy tells Jesse how he has overcome his bigotry towards other races because he personally knows Jesse, who is a member of a different race than Billy. Major issues are explored; each child has good insights and heartwarming observations. During such round table discussions, even more walls come tumbling down.

As Venus develops more confidence in herself and relies less on She-Ra and her magic sword, she develops friendships in the class. Alice literally takes Venus under her wing and insists on "being best friends" with her. A good placement in a loving, nuturing home after having endured years of abuse and neglect also accelerates the progress Venus makes. I like the way the book provides updates on the progress of each pupil.

I can't recommend this one highly enough.

Once again, Torey Hayden has yanked my heart from side to side! Venus, the seven year old in this story, is an amazingly brave soul. Just as Sheila was a "fighter" and "survivor" in Hayden's book, ONE CHILD, little Venus shows the same strength and courage in the face of what most of the world would consider insurmountable odds, although not necessarily in the same ways.

This book stirred me in a most peculiar way. I always have a desire to "help" after I read Hayden's books, but this book dug even deeper into my heart. I guess there are some things in this world that the majority of us will just never be able to understand at all.

I can tell already that I will be wondering for years, unless a sequel is written to answer my questions, what happened to Venus.

Torey Hayden's new book, "Beautiful Child," is a moving account of Ms. Hayden's year teaching a class of children with serious emotional and physical problems. Shane and Zane are six-year-olds with fetal alcohol syndrome. Nine-year-old Billy is hyperactive and aggressive. Eight-year-old Jesse twitches and barks as a result of his Tourette's syndrome. The title refers to seven-year-old Venus Fox, a deeply withdrawn child from a dysfunctional family who is completely unresponsive to external stimuli.

Hayden vividly recounts the outrageous and often hilarious events that occur in her classroom in minute detail. We feel her frustration and elation as she describes her efforts to transform an angry and anti-social group of students into a cohesive and functioning class. Hayden is as unembarrassed about discussing her setbacks as she is pleased to discuss her successes. The author's honesty and realism give "Beautiful Child" an extra dimension that touches the heart.

The story of Venus Fox reduced me to tears. Hayden's painstaking efforts to bring Venus out of her shell had me cheering for this child who had so many strikes against her. I recommend "Beautiful Child" for all readers who are interested in the art of teaching children with special needs.

Once again I was drawn into feeling like I was in the class room with Torey and her kids. She is amazing how she connect with these kids. It's a shame there aren't more teachers like Torey. You will love this book. It makes you feel like you are right there with her teaching, you laugh and cry with her and feel the same frustations as she feels. It's so real. I love how she gets down on the child's level and treats all the children like they are people too without the children realizing that is what she is doing and how at the end the children teach themselves and Torey as much as Torey has taught them. I like the fact that when the children have a viewpoint that Torey listens and respects it and learns from it as do the children. It's so great how the children come to love Torey when they have such hard lives outside of school and come into her class with such bad feelings of the world and everyone in it. That in the end the children feel really good about themselves. Great job Torey, keep the books coming. You're great....

Torey Hayden again tells the story of one of her special education classrooms. Again she is able to nearly hypnotize the reader, rendering them unable to put down the book. Again she knows how to use the perfect mixture of humor and pain to create a story told from truth.

The only difference between this book and her others is the fact that there has been a large time gap between the writing of them. Torey has changed is some way concerning the way she writes, which makes the whole reading experience a little more exciting and special.

Read this book - you won't regret doing so.

Torey Hayden's books are not simply books any more than Torey Hayden is simply "a teacher." I have learned more from this woman's writing alone than I did in my entire high school career. I've learned about human nature, about idealism and optimism, about passion and children and the genuine power of love (and a hell of a lot of pluck and charisma) that is so often discredited as "luck" or the abilities gleaned from formal training.
Venus didn't speak and was unresponsive to the point that Torey initially thought she was deaf. Her problems proved to be far more debilitating than that, the very least of which being the attitude towards her from the staff at her school. Venus wasn't worth the effort to save. She was too far gone. Too unintelligent. Too stubborn. To bring her back to our world would be an impossibility.
Venus isn't our only child here. As always, Torey puts us right in the middle of the controlled chaos of her classroom. Here we meet Billy, uncontrollable-and with the glimmers of beyond average intelligence; Jesse, a handful and a half afflicted with Tourette's; Shane and Zane, twin boys with borderline IQs as a result of FES; Gwennie, a high-functioning autistic child who could tell you anything about any country in the atlas but unable to have a meaningful conversation; and Alice, a little girl only describable as "quirky" and far behind academically. As with all of Torey's classes, it's impossible for the reader not to fall in love with these kids. Their disabilities no longer seem quite so dismal, and we laugh right along with them. We also meet Julie, an aide with a slightly maddening pacifist attitude. This is the first time we really feel Torey's bristling frustration page after page at a time. For all the patience and connection she has with her kids, this woman may prove an impossibility to work with.
Torey Hayden is incredible. She presents her children as "normal"-or maybe just shows us that "normal" is not applicable to children at all. Each individual has their quirks, their problems, their own personalities. Perhaps it simply takes us a little longer to recognize that in our world. In Torey's, there's no transition. These are her children, frustrating and sometimes ill-behaved like all children, and rather than pitying them, she simply loves them. We need more teachers-more people-like Torey Hayden.
Always my hero, Tor. - amberish-one

Ms. Hayden writes about things that really happened, so she doesn't have the luxury of rearranging events to provide happy endings. However, she is in full control of the rate of development. "One Child" was a page-turner, but the books that followed have become more and more ponderous. Enamored of her own thoughts, Hayden gushes verbiage like a broken water main in sharing them with readers. The result is that as the end of the book approaches, it's depressing how little story has emerged from how much rumination. Most of her books have had this problem to varying degrees, from minimal to moderate, but "Beautiful Child" is choked by it.

For those who have already read One Child, it may be more appropriate to rate Beautiful Child as a 4 star book, given that in many ways the two books are very similar. However once again it is a compelling read and very difficult to put down - like One Child, I was through this book in a couple of days. And again, this is the story of the development of a class of children with major behavioural difficulties over a period of one school year (4 boys and 1 girl, with others joining part-time) and the story is particularly focused on one of those children (a 7 year old girl named Venus). Because Venus herself hadn't committed any "crimes", I didn't take as strong a message as I took from One Child, which really brought it home to me that those we call the worst sinners are generally more sinned against than sinners. However the same lessons regarding the unfairness of the hands dealt to so many people, how extremely lucky most of us are without in any way deserving or earning it, and how we should think twice before jumping to conclusions about some of our least "attractive" fellow human beings, came through strongly.

Beautiful Child is a true story about Torey Hayden and her experiences with her severely handicapped class of 6 children ranging in age from 6-9. This story deals particularly with her experiences with an elective mute little girl named Venus Fox. Venus never talks, never cries, and never shows any emotion. She however does have dramatic violent outbursts when another student gets too close to her, or touches her either by accident or to provoke her. Venus is deprived of clothes, food, and is being forced to sleep naked in the bath tub in the middle of winter. Her older sister Wanda brings her to school, when she remembers. Eventually Torey starts putting together little pieces of information that both Venus and Wanda begin to share with her. When Venus is admitted to the hospital, it all comes together. This was a good book, but not the best one I have read by Hayden.

Awsome book. Torey Hayden is a marvelous teacher and writer. I have all her books and have thoroly enjoyed them. The marvelous patience she has with these children and the love she has for them is wonderful.