2008 Awards for Bones That Float: Independent Publisher "IPPY" Outstanding Book of the Year - PEACEMAKER OF THE YEAR
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Review
Told with fierce honesty and an affecting voice, Bones That Float is a love story of mother for her child, and a testimony of how love can change the world. --Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child
This rare book, despite its harrowing truths, is an effective and hopeful call to action a nudge to your social conscience that will have you asking, What's my Cambodia? --Angel Limb, Artsline Editor WCVE-FM 88.9 Public Radio, Richmond, Virginia
Impossible to put down and haunting long past its end... Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, Rainbow Kids E-Magazine.
A literary gem that employs sumptuous prose... Cathryn Alpert, author of the novel Rocket City.
The universal story of every human on this earth... --Arn Chorn-Pond, musician, human rights activist, and star of the award winning PBS documentary film The Flute Player
This rare book, despite its harrowing truths, is an effective and hopeful call to action a nudge to your social conscience that will have you asking, What's my Cambodia? --Angel Limb, Artsline Editor WCVE-FM 88.9 Public Radio, Richmond, Virginia
Impossible to put down and haunting long past its end... Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, Rainbow Kids E-Magazine.
A literary gem that employs sumptuous prose... Cathryn Alpert, author of the novel Rocket City.
The universal story of every human on this earth... --Arn Chorn-Pond, musician, human rights activist, and star of the award winning PBS documentary film The Flute Player
This rare book, despite its harrowing truths, is an effective and hopeful call to action a nudge to your social conscience that will have you asking, What's my Cambodia? --Angel Limb, Artsline Editor WCVE-FM 88.9 Public Radio, Richmond, Virginia
Impossible to put down and haunting long past its end... Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, Rainbow Kids E-Magazine.
A literary gem that employs sumptuous prose... Cathryn Alpert, author of the novel Rocket City.
The universal story of every human on this earth... --Arn Chorn-Pond, musician, human rights activist, and star of the award winning PBS documentary film The Flute Player
This rare book, despite its harrowing truths, is an effective and hopeful call to action a nudge to your social conscience that will have you asking, What's my Cambodia? --Angel Limb, Artsline Editor WCVE-FM 88.9 Public Radio, Richmond, Virginia
Impossible to put down and haunting long past its end... Violeta Garcia-Mendoza, Rainbow Kids E-Magazine.
A literary gem that employs sumptuous prose... Cathryn Alpert, author of the novel Rocket City.
The universal story of every human on this earth... --Arn Chorn-Pond, musician, human rights activist, and star of the award winning PBS documentary film The Flute Player
About the Author
Author Kari Grady Grossman's life has been anything but planned or ordinary. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1968, Kari grew up in Arcade, N.Y., pop. about 10,000. While studying television writing at Syracuse University, Kari wrote a screenplay about a murder in her hometown. Her manuscript so enthralled a professor that he took it to his agent who immediately signed Kari up for representation.
With dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenplay writer, Kari set off for Los Angeles in her sky blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme after graduating in 1990. She learned quickly that Hollywood can be fickle. Her screenplay was sidelined while another film about the same murder was made for TV starring Elizabeth Montgomery. Midway cross-country on her road trip, the budding writer took a detour into Colorado ski country and stayed for three years.
While working as a photographer at the Breckenridge Ski Resort, Kari met her future husband George Grossman, also a photographer. The two set off in 1991 on bikes despite the fact that Kari had not ridden since age 11 to take pictures in Alaska. After another year of dividing time between Colorado snowy peaks and Alaskan summer splendor, the couple moved to Jackson, Wyo., where they founded the Great Outdoors Photography Company in 1993.
The Grady Grossman's quickly gained a reputation as topnotch wildlife photographers, tracking wolves and eagles among other creatures. The couple also took on increasingly challenging mountaineering treks, including up Cotapaxi in Equador. In 1998, after selling their photography company, Kari turned her focus to writing and was sent to Alaska, to cover the Iditarod for Discovery Channel Online. In 2000, Discovery sent Kari to the Mount Everest base camp for nine weeks to cover an all women ascent.
Meanwhile, Kari and her husband had become serious about having children, only to discover that Mother Nature had other plans. By 2000, the couple had begun an adoption process in Cambodia, a country that they could hardly place on a map at the time. That soon changed.
Taken by the country where their son Grady was born, the couple created a school in 2001 near the highest mountain in Cambodia. They were determined to help make a positive change in a country devastated by the torturous reign of the Khmer Rouge. The Grady Grossman School now educates 485 students through sixth grade, with more students hoping to enroll. Kari was compelled to write Bones That Float to tell her story about adopting her son and the profound changes that journey had on her life. The book was published by Wild Heaven Press in 2007. A portion of the proceeds from the book goes to support Sustainable Schools International, a non-profit 501(c)(3) started with her husband. In 2008 she and her husband were named Colorado Parents of the Year by the Colorado Parents Day Council. Now a resident of Fort Collins, Colorado, she is at work on a book about India, the homeland of her second adopted child, daughter Shanti.
Kari travels throughout the country speaking about her work as the Executive Director of Sustainable Schools International. If you've ever dreamed of changing the world, this is a story you won't want to miss. Much more than an adoption tale, Kari inspires audiences interested in social justice, history, education, global awareness and activism.
With dreams of becoming a Hollywood screenplay writer, Kari set off for Los Angeles in her sky blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme after graduating in 1990. She learned quickly that Hollywood can be fickle. Her screenplay was sidelined while another film about the same murder was made for TV starring Elizabeth Montgomery. Midway cross-country on her road trip, the budding writer took a detour into Colorado ski country and stayed for three years.
While working as a photographer at the Breckenridge Ski Resort, Kari met her future husband George Grossman, also a photographer. The two set off in 1991 on bikes despite the fact that Kari had not ridden since age 11 to take pictures in Alaska. After another year of dividing time between Colorado snowy peaks and Alaskan summer splendor, the couple moved to Jackson, Wyo., where they founded the Great Outdoors Photography Company in 1993.
The Grady Grossman's quickly gained a reputation as topnotch wildlife photographers, tracking wolves and eagles among other creatures. The couple also took on increasingly challenging mountaineering treks, including up Cotapaxi in Equador. In 1998, after selling their photography company, Kari turned her focus to writing and was sent to Alaska, to cover the Iditarod for Discovery Channel Online. In 2000, Discovery sent Kari to the Mount Everest base camp for nine weeks to cover an all women ascent.
Meanwhile, Kari and her husband had become serious about having children, only to discover that Mother Nature had other plans. By 2000, the couple had begun an adoption process in Cambodia, a country that they could hardly place on a map at the time. That soon changed.
Taken by the country where their son Grady was born, the couple created a school in 2001 near the highest mountain in Cambodia. They were determined to help make a positive change in a country devastated by the torturous reign of the Khmer Rouge. The Grady Grossman School now educates 485 students through sixth grade, with more students hoping to enroll. Kari was compelled to write Bones That Float to tell her story about adopting her son and the profound changes that journey had on her life. The book was published by Wild Heaven Press in 2007. A portion of the proceeds from the book goes to support Sustainable Schools International, a non-profit 501(c)(3) started with her husband. In 2008 she and her husband were named Colorado Parents of the Year by the Colorado Parents Day Council. Now a resident of Fort Collins, Colorado, she is at work on a book about India, the homeland of her second adopted child, daughter Shanti.
Kari travels throughout the country speaking about her work as the Executive Director of Sustainable Schools International. If you've ever dreamed of changing the world, this is a story you won't want to miss. Much more than an adoption tale, Kari inspires audiences interested in social justice, history, education, global awareness and activism.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read book for all Americans,
This review is from: Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia (Hardcover)
From page one this book will grab your heart and not let go. It will move you to think about international adoption and the critical bridges that are being built between our nations and cultures, and learn of one woman's amazing work to build a school in a remote Cambodian village. Kari tells of heart-wrenching stories of Cambodian loss, courage, and triumph during the Khmer Rouge era. This book opened my eyes to what happened in Cambodia during the Vietnam era and the devestating impacts of that war. But, the beauty of this book is that it is not just a historical account, nor just a story of adoption, it weaves all together so beatifully, so humanly, that when you turn the last page, you just might feel, as I do, that you've read one of the best books of your life.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful stories, but disappointing,
By A's Mom (Overseas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia (Hardcover)
I thoroughly enjoyed the individual stories woven throughout this book. The life stories of the main Cambodian characters were so powerful I couldn't stop reading about their lives. As a parent to children adopted transracially and internationally I could relate to many of the emotions and questions that Grossman raises. However, I do not believe this is a book that will resonate with most adoptees, birth/first parents or astute adoptive parents. Grossman takes liberties where she shouldn't frequently stating opinion as fact. There are no references listed or sources cited in this book. For example, she states that half of adoptees choose to search for birthparents and half do not. However, there are no references to back up that statement. Most troubling was the following on page 140 where she talks about the US ban on adoptions from Cambodia stating, "Yet after more than four years of State Department investigations and ample gossip of brokering stories, no birthmother has come back to reclaim an illicitly procured child. The women of Cambodia are poor, not stupid." Again, no citations or references are provided. As it turns out the first statement is not true, birthmothers did return to reclaim their children thankfully before they left Cambodia. Anyone can read about it in official public documents. The second statement is so offensive, Grossman owes an apology to all birthmothers globally who have been duped out of raising their children. One only need to attend a CUB meeting or with human rights organizations in countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, India and elsewhere to discover that intelligent women have in fact lost their children to adoption following empty promises from unscrupulous facilitators. While I enjoyed much of the story, in the end I was disappointed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "read-in-one-sitting"-book,
This review is from: Bones That Float, A Story of Adopting Cambodia (Hardcover)
With unflinching honesty and well-researched facts, Ms. Grossman details the plight of Cambodia's children as well as her personal story of advocacy for them. This book emphasizes that heartfelt, direct action addresses what meaningless political rhetoric cannot.
This book will prick your conscience and will have you asking "what's *my* Cambodia?" Very highly recommended.
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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head plonk, sour fish soup, bamboo bed Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh, Viet Nam, Chen Kmao, Srey Pau, United States, District Chief, Kampong Kohl, Lon Nol, New Year, Sokun Prom, Festival of the Dead, North Vietnamese, Bon Louch, Cambodia Daily, Chea Chantra, Democratic Kampuchea, Grady Grossman School, Hun Sen, Kampong Chain, Pol Pot, United Nations, Ban Cheow, Bon Leoun, China Garden New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
head plonk, sour fish soup, bamboo bed Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh, Viet Nam, Chen Kmao, Srey Pau, United States, District Chief, Kampong Kohl, Lon Nol, New Year, Sokun Prom, Festival of the Dead, North Vietnamese, Bon Louch, Cambodia Daily, Chea Chantra, Democratic Kampuchea, Grady Grossman School, Hun Sen, Kampong Chain, Pol Pot, United Nations, Ban Cheow, Bon Leoun, China Garden New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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