A popular college town minister and his wife want to adopt a four-year-old girl but learn she has three older brothers and decide to welcome all four children into their home. They arrive from a bleak county children' s home, bringing with them invisible histories of neglect and abuse. This true story, based on case files and family interviews, opens with the children's background and the oldest boy's determined struggle to keep his family together. The four children barely survive ever worse threats as they lose the adults in their world to imprisonment, abandonment, and death. When all seems hopeless, a talented social worker intervenes, trying to change their fate. This is a lively and sometimes humorous story. Children of the Manse entertains as it describes how four wounded children respond to intelligent and loving foster care.
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant Book about Adoption!,
By
This review is from: Children of the Manse (Paperback)
Customer Reviews of the book:A review by Pierre L. Van Rysselberghe, Senior Judge, State of Oregon Circuit Court, Retired Children of the Manse is a personal reflection by one of four siblings who comes to terms with his biological family and by which he learns to understand familial disengagements and attachments. The relating of his story allows him to assess and harmonize his feelings toward his biological parents, his three siblings, and his adoptive parents. The work is an illustration of what thousands of neglected and abused children experience. Many children are never rescued from their circumstances of poverty, abuse and neglect. Although attempts are made to improve the lives of many of these children, success is limited and many flounder within the temporary care system which results in limited or unfulfilled opportunities in life. Children who somehow manage to survive their impoverished circumstances to ultimately experience a world of love, security and opportunity are the fortunate and perhaps rare examples of the best that child care services and adoption can provide. The author is the eldest of four children, three brothers and one sister, who are placed by their inadequate parents in a children's care home. There they reside for two and one-half years until a gifted social worker uncorks the bottle of promise by finding a remarkable placement that becomes their permanent home. It is a bitter-sweet, sometimes humorous, deeply moving story. A glaring light is cast on the helplessness of children who are born into dysfunctional homes in which they are mistreated and perhaps genuinely unwanted. The writer describes the unique family that selflessly welcomes the four children into their home of warmth and encouragement. It is a remarkable description in which the reader celebrates with the author. Finally, it is a story about a caring child welfare worker who tirelessly champions the needs of children in their limbo years of temporary child welfare life. The magic of her resolve and insight blends the children's hopes of which they are unaware to a couple who are seeking an opportunity to have children of their own. How often can such a match be made and how often with such remarkable success? Lewis Richard Luchs understands these delicate features of life about which so many are ignorant. He has walked the impossible path and survived to come accomplished in his career in the diplomatic service, as a musician and as a champion for children who benefit from caring and loving adoptive homes. His story exposes human frailties while it exalts human kindness and generosity. The road travelled by the four Luchs siblings leads to a triumph of the human spirit. - - - - - A review by Megan Shultz, Executive Director for Lane County, Oregon What happens when the inability to truly love becomes generational? What does love look like behind the tears of an angry young boy? How does love conquer fear through the tender words and safe arms of a woman who yearned to be a mother? Children of the Manse is a story of love complicated by pain, of the power to heal a wounded child, and lay the foundation for future promise. It is a story of the power of love that every adoptive parent, social worker and foster parent should read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Important book,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Children of the Manse (Paperback)
What a beautiful, insightful and touching autobiography, well told. A much needed inside look into the world of adoption and foster care. As well as poverty. I highly recommend this book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A journey of siblings,
By Eidas (Montana USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Children of the Manse (Paperback)
The author tells his story of abandonment by his mother, loss of his father and how he and his younger siblings survived the ordeal. It's up to the reader to decide if his story has a happy ending. Bittersweet and honest. A quick read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
