Customer Reviews

Broken Hearts...Healing: Young Poets Speak Out on Divorce

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This is wrenchingly honest reflection of the effect of divorce on children. It would be useful to parents considering divorce or already divorcing and children who are compelled into a divided family. If you think your children are not very effected by this decision over which they have no control- think again. The voices of these children are beautiful, uninhibited and poignant. Highly recommended.

Reading divorces from the children prospective is a humbling experience. To me it required some effort just in order to try and see their point of view. Unless of course it is your own children telling you what is happening in his/her life. I've tried to imagine just that and the transition become then easy. This book made me think directly about the whole process.
I read Broken Heart healing children poetry, in which the freedom of speech is challenged by the writing in a pleasant format. The Book Broken Heart Healing gives you a lot of information on the children dreams and passions. This is more genuine, more representing of the words the children use to explain what really does not requires complicated words in the first place.
Broken Heart Healing does not give you the peace of mind, does not let you sleep at ease. It lets you know that your job is not complete with your divorcing: it just begun. This book gives you the prospective that no matter what is in your children world, the way your children sees it is something different than what you have hoped for.
This book should be a requirement for any judge upholding the proceedings and any lawyer stalling on the form: what is a stake is much more than a property division!

Broken Hearts...Healing: Young Poets Speak Out on Divorce has changed my life. The voices of these young poets represent all the many children whose lives have been affected by divorce. Until now their words have been covered up and hidden, so that we wouldn't realize what an impact divorce has on children's lives. Some of their poems are very emotional and were painful for me to read, but others are about forgiveness and healing. Thank you Tom for letting these children speak out. This book has given me a new perspective on divorce. It has taught me that the true victims are the children and we must help them heal.

The poignant poems collected in Broken Hearts... Healing ought to be required reading for every couple contemplating ending their marriage, and should certainly be used to help children from broken families know that they are not alone in their hurting. Ruthlessly honest and heartbreaking, the poems are outpourings of grief and resignation from children of divorced parents. The poets, ranging in ages from nine to eighteen, capture the raw emotions that divorce wrings out of the children it affects. Illustrations by third-grade Utah artist Kyle Hernandez add to the sense of innocence lost too soon.

I am a worried kid whose parents are divorced/ I constantly wonder if what I'm doing is best for me/ I hear the tortured cries from within my own body and soul/ I see that I'm a nuclear explosion of misery and sorrow/ I want for all of the pain to end now/ I am a worried kid whose parents are divorced (fragment from "I Am" by Andrew, Age 12)

Tom Worthen's Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication makes him a likely choice for editor of such a book. His credentials as a man trying to be "the best divorced dad he can be" to his three children makes him the perfect choice. In his "foreword for parents," Worthen says

Divorce is a process. In the legal context it is a single event. To the individuals involved, divorce is a continuing cycle of love, hate, pain, fear and endless other emotions...I found that what often makes divorce most devastating is how the parents act and react toward each other and the children.

Although such an observation seems blatantly obvious, still parents use their children in their private battles; still parents abandon their children when they leave a marriage. Perhaps Worthen sums up the importance to children of divorce of having a book like Broken Hearts... Healing in his "foreword for the youth": "Divorce sucks." Having your parents end their marriage changes your whole world. But you are not alone.

From the uncertainty of suddenly being in a family split apart to the frustration of being trapped between two warring adults to the heartbreak of abandonment when a non-custodial parent leaves for good, these young authors' poems speak eloquently to both their peers and their parents.

The parents went on with their lives,/ The child grew with tears in her eyes./ Eleven years later and they don't care,/ That the child feels like they're never there./ The parents never knew,/

That the child was broken in two. (fragment from "The Child" by Nikki, Age 13)

Broken Hearts...Healing: Young Poets Speak Out On Divorce is an impressive and memorable collection of original poetry stemming from the disruption, heartbreak, and confusion of contemporary divorce as experienced by the children of separating parents. The boys and girls who work is here collected are children in grades 4 to 12 with their poems are held to a maximum of 21 lines each. This compendium of honesty and candor ought to be read by every father and every mother who has ever contemplated, or implemented, a divorce proceeding. To My Daddy: You said--/you would be there for us,/but you are not.//Why tell my mom--/you would be there, when you knew you would not.//When I was younger--/I believed you would be there,/and not leave me,/but that was a lie.//I hope you know--/you hurt me,/but I know you don't care. (Becky Colorado, Age 14).