The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage [Hardcover]

Richard B. McKenzie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1996

An internationally reknowned economics professor shares the story of his childhood, during which he was taken from his abusive and alcoholic parents and raised in a children's shelter in North Carolina. National ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While orphanages are often viewed through Dickensian lenses, McKenzie, who at the age of 10 was placed in a home for boys and girls, takes spirited issue with such disparagement. In the 1950s in Raleigh, North Carolina, life in The Home, as it was called, was no picnic, he says, but then neither was life with alcoholic, negligent parents. At the orphanage, he was sheltered in a bucolic setting; came to understand relationships that were positive, yet left room for boyish longings for a mother's affection; and established the survival techniques that led to successful adulthood. McKenzie's personal revisiting of boyhood haunts led to his inquiry into how well his peers had fared in life after The Home. More than a thousand alumni contacts confirmed his intuition that "orphans as a group indicate a far more positive attitude toward life than the average American." His poignant story sheds light on institutional care that served children when all else failed. McKenzie is professor at the graduate school of management at UC-Irvine.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 1952, ten-year-old Richard and his 12-year-old brother were delivered to the Home, a Presbyterian orphanage in rural North Carolina, after their mother committed suicide and their father was found too chronically drunk to care for them. They remained there until they graduated from high school. McKenzie's remembrance of those years is neither whitewashed nor nostalgic; he gives evidence that orphanages can be "a refuge and a source of inspiration" to neglected children. McKenzie, an author and professor of economics, has prefaced this work with responses from a survey of over 1000 living "alumni" of the Home supporting the positive attributes of institutional care: security, stability, permanence, direction, and a value system. McKenzie presents a compelling argument in favor of giving abused or homeless children an opportunity to begin a new life by escaping both their sordid past and their hopeless present. Highly recommended for both lay readers and policymakers.
Cathy Sabol, Northern Virginia Community Coll., Manassas
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1St Edition edition (February 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465030688
• ISBN-13: 978-0465030682
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Childhood Lessons, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage (Hardcover)

This review is in response to the Booklist one above. In The Home, McKenzie makes a case in favor of orphanages as opposed to foster homes based on his own experiences. He points out that The Home is his story and was not intended to speak for all orphans. This book shows how people have choices in life - they can choose to use what they are dealt for them or against them. The stories that McKenzie relates illustrate how he learned valuable life lessons during his childhood, which ultimately contributed to his present success. Although some of the stories in the book made me cry, I thorougly enjoyed reading it. I feel like The Home gives readers a peek into McKenzie's soul. Truly inspirational, very interesting, and it makes you re-evaluate your own childhood!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The Home" made me alternately cry and laugh., August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage (Hardcover)

Prof. McKenzie's book, "The Home", touched me to the core. The plight of children, in all walks of life, are "dear to my heart". The book made me alternately cry and smile throughout with it's sometimes heart- wrenching look at life through a young boy's eyes. It is good to know that children without "parents" and a "normal" family can be cared for and loved enough to grow up and become viable, giving human beings. For the sake of suffering and lonely children everywhere, I believe this story needs to be told.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration from an economist--Honest, September 13, 2006

By 

Dwight R. Lee (Dunwoody, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage (Paperback)

Some will see this book as an unlikely one to have been written by an economist. Economists are thought of as people who see things in analytical ways, detached from emotion, and McKenzie is a very good economist. Yet reading his book, The Home (the second edition), will be an emotional experience, with highs and lows found in equal measure. It is a very personal story that comes straight from the heart and which everyone who has made the transition from child to adult will relate to in his or her own way. But as an economist myself, I can see the influence of economics in this book, though it in no way distracts from the emotional impact of the narrative. Economists tend to be rather immune to flights of fantasy about how the world should be. They recognize that the world is full of unpleasant choices, with it necessary to compare imperfect alternatives with every decision we make. McKenzie's story points to the some of the advantages he realized from being raised in an orphanage in the 1950s. But he doesn't whitewash his experience by concentrating on just the good--just read the first chapter. He recognizes that in an ideal world there would have been better alternatives, such as an intact and loving family, but that those better alternatives were not available to him. And so while recognizing the hardships and limitations he faced as a child growing up in an orphanage, McKenzie is able to tell as story of gratitude for the sense of place and permanence he was given by the orphanage and for those who, with love and devotion, made it seem like more like a home than he had experienced before. McKenzie's story, despite its realism, is a story that will inspire readers from a wide range of backgrounds. Finally, for those who have read the first edition of The Home, this edition includes an epilogue that brings us up to date with McKenzie's childhood friends.