Customer Reviews

Defiance

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This book is a heart-warming, couragous story. I found myself smiling and by the end, shedding a few tears! What a great story about life, relationships, feelings and more. A must read for anyone!!

The thing about cancer is that only a person who has it knows how hard it really is to take care of the problem. It's not like you get to pick if you have it or not, it just happens.

In the book DEFIANCE a boy about 11 years old finds another lump on his side, He gets real scared, trust me if I had cancer and I found a lump on my side I would be worried too.

The one big mistake someone with cancer can do is not tell anyone and let it get worse. I know how hard it must be for the parents because they worry all the time. My grandma has lung cancer, and she dosn't even smoke. It's real hard to just leave them alone but you have to learn to and that is what this whole book is all about really, he wants his mom to leave him alone about his problem but is comes back and he just doesn't want to go through it agian. I wouldn't want to eather.

Toby meets someone who helps him make the right choices in the end so he soesn't make dumb ones, like not getting the treatment he needs for his cancer. he just wishes he could be a normal kid and that is what put this book together, the choices he made, and how he made them.

I had to read this book for my Graduate social work elective course Grief, Loss & Bereavement and think about how I would use this in a group session or curriculum for children. I absolutely loved it and think that it is an excellent book for children ages 11-13. Especially, young boys. I highly recommend this book for social workers, counselors, parents or anyone one who is working with children who are facing sickness and disease. It also touches on death and relationship with the elderly. Absolutely loved it!

Valerie Hobbs does a wonderful job weaving this story about Toby, an eleven-year-old city boy with cancer, Pearl, a 94-year-old poet with macular degeneration (results in poor eyesight) living alone on a dilapidated farm, and Blossom, an aging milk cow. Toby is on vacation when he discovers Blossom, the cow. He's concerned about how skinny she is, so he heads to the nearby farm to confront the farmer who happens to be an old woman, Pearl.

Defiance is a rich story deep with meaning for people who have experienced cancer or other losses in life. Early in the book, Toby reads the sign posted on Pearl's house, "Whoever steals my freedom takes my life," which is one theme of the book. Toby feels like his parents are stealing his freedom. Pearl feels like her daughters are trying to steal her freedom. Pearl and Toby just want to be free to make the decisions they want to make. Pearl and Toby discover they are exactly what each other needs to help them make important decisions.

This was purchased for a children's program at our local library. Can't comment on the book itself, as I haven't read it. But shipping was fast and book was in the condition promised.