Customer Reviews

My Left Foot

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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This is the story of a young man who was born in Ireland in 1932, after a difficult birth and with a severe disability that the doctors of the time were unable to name. They urged his parents to disavow him, as he was, they believed, an imbecile with a severely spastic body. Moreover, his parents then had five other children, all healthy. Christy's mother, however, refused to institutionalize him, keeping him at home and treating him as she would her other children. It would not be until years later that she would learn that Christy's affliction was severe cerebral palsy.

Imprisoned in a world all his own and seeming without means to communicate, Christy, at the age of five, made an attempt that was to change his life forever. Rather than being imbecilic, Christy was actually highly intelligent. He took a piece of chalk with his left foot and, having captured the attention of his family, proceeded to scrawl on the floor a reasonable facsimile of the letter "A", astounding his loving family in the process.

By breaking the communications barrier, Christy demonstrated that he could learn and understand. From then on, his capacity for learning was prodigious. Who would have thought that within his severely contorted and convulsed body lay a razor sharp mind and a thirst for knowledge? Certainly not the medical community, which had been so willing to consign him to institutional living. Armed with his left foot, the only part of his body over which he seemed to have some control, Christy Brown would demonstrate to the world who he really was. He was, after all, not the imbecile that the medical community had originally thought but an intelligent and sentient human being.

This is Christy Brown's triumphant and inspirational story of his battle to learn to read, write, and paint, all with the aid of his left foot. It is an inspirational story of his quest for fulfillment. His yearning to be as others are is palpable, and his struggle for acceptance beyond the borders of his home and his physical limitations are well articulated. Christy Brown gives the reader a birds-eye view of what it is like to be a person with severe cerebral palsy. First published in Great Britain in 1954, when Christy Brown was twenty-two, this book, written with his left foot, is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

This is the story of a young man who was born in Ireland in 1932, after a difficult birth and with a severe disability that the doctors of the time were unable to name. They urged his parents to disavow him, as he was, they believed, an imbecile with a severely spastic body. Moreover, his parents then had five other children, all healthy. Christy's mother, however, refused to institutionalize him, keeping him at home and treating him as she would her other children. It would not be until years later that she would learn that Christy's affliction was severe cerebral palsy.

Imprisoned in a world all his own and seeming without means to communicate, Christy, at the age of five, made an attempt that was to change his life forever. Rather than being imbecilic, Christy was actually highly intelligent. He took a piece of chalk with his left foot and, having captured the attention of his family, proceeded to scrawl on the floor a reasonable facsimile of the letter "A", astounding his loving family in the process.

By breaking the communications barrier, Christy demonstrated that he could learn and understand. From then on, his capacity for learning was prodigious. Who would have thought that within his severely contorted and convulsed body lay a razor sharp mind and a thirst for knowledge? Certainly not the medical community, which had been so willing to consign him to institutional living. Armed with his left foot, the only part of his body over which he seemed to have some control, Christy Brown would demonstrate to the world who he really was. He was, after all, not the imbecile that the medical community had originally thought but an intelligent and sentient human being.

This is Christy Brown's triumphant and inspirational story of his battle to learn to read, write, and paint, all with the aid of his left foot. It is an inspirational story of his quest for fulfillment. His yearning to be as others are is palpable, and his struggle for acceptance beyond the borders of his home and his physical limitations are well articulated. Christy Brown gives the reader a birds-eye view of what it is like to be a person with severe cerebral palsy. First published in Great Britain in 1954, when Christy Brown was twenty-two, this book, written with his left foot, is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

This was a very inspiring book written by Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy, about his own life and the struggles that he had to overcome. Christy was born in 1933 in Ireland. Against many other's pushing to have Christy institutionalized, Christy's mother did not want to put him into an institution, therefore she kept him at home to be raised with the rest of the family. Christy surprised readers with his amazing abilities. He was able to communicate with his speech and his ability to write with his left foot. One night he lay on the kitchen floor, picked up a piece of chalk with his left foot and wrote, "mother" on the floor. This surprised his family and also gave them a lot of hope and faith in Christy. This is when Christy broke down the barriers of communication and started to overcome his physical disabity. He went through and overcame the struggles of reading, writing, painting and eventually typing. He was able to participate in many activities, such as playing in neighborhood games. He was a very extremely inspiring man who accomplished a great deal in his life. This book would be wonderful to use in the classroom to show students, who do not have a disability, how to understand what students with disabilities go through and their abilities and potentials.

Obviously, I was first introduced to Christy Brown through the film My Left Foot which won accolades for Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, both deserving of them. It wasn't until many years later that I thought of the movie and then decided to read his autobiographical work. Although Christy Brown veers off the topic once in a while during My Left Foot, he is able to tell his story through a rare point of view that feels all too true for many disabled people such as me. It was easy for me to relate with what he was feeling and experiencing because I went through the same thing until I reached the point where I felt that his struggles in life closely paralleled as mine. I thought it odd because he lived in another country and three or four generations ago yet what he described are exactly how I went through. Another thing that is surprisingly unique about the book is that it is so much different from the movie. I am not taking anything away from the movie, but I felt the book is so much better from a humanistic point of view. My favorite humorous moment occurred in page 100 when Christy Brown got off the plane and entered the ambulance before departing. He writes, "There she was on the steps of the plane, laughing with one of the crew, a tall handsome chap with fair hair. I hated him." Of course, his similar feelings are found from time to time. However, Christy Brown is limited in certain ways of revealing simple information about his daily routines such as how did he go through eating, drinking, clothing, walking, bathing, and so on. The book is also missing something else: pictures of himself and his paintings. Luckily, as it just recently happened, Georgina Louise Hambleton just wrote a book entitled Christy Brown: The Life that Inspired My Left Foot which fills in the missing portions and extends knowledge of Christy Brown's life after the premature end during the reading of My Left Foot as it was completed by Christy Brown when he was twenty two years old. He lived much longer from the end of My Left Foot until his death in 1981. All in all, My Left Foot is a powerfully written autobiographical book about a man who overcame the disability of his cerebral palsy, the limitedness of human contact, and the struggle to make himself heard to everyone. It was difficult for me to obtain this book, so I had to special request it through the interlibrary loan which took some time. That tells me this out-of-print book needs more attention and much wider publishing because My Left Foot is essentially no different from Helen Keller's The Story of My Life.

It was the movie that inspired me to want to read this book. The film starred Daniel Day Lewis, all convincingly twisted and crippled, his normally handsome face distorted and wracked with spasms. The book is a quick, light read, maybe not as dramatic as seeing how this terrible malady, cerebral palsy. manifests itself as when you watch it on film, but the miracle is not so much that it is well written, but that it was written at all, and how. Christy Brown did it using his left foot, the only part of his body over which he had control and he does have a story to tell. One reads with a sense of wonder how his intellectual capacity managed to be recognized and then you wonder how many people like him spent their lives in institutions unable to tell the world that they understood every word spoken to and around them. The times in which he lived are captured perfectly, as he describes being one of 22 children born, 13 of whom lived, the influence of the catholic church and the poverty and attitudes that prevailed during his childhood and how he was saved by the unquenshable trust manifested by his mother, that a man with an active, vital intelligence was hidden in that sad body.

For something different I would recommend this book. Written from the heart it gives uplifting account of Chrity Brown's battle with adversity. It is interesting book sbout hope and love that everyone csn use and get something from.

The heart of the story is good -- it gives a touching glimpse into the life of someone living with cerebral palsy, and reading it certainly raised my awareness of not judging someone's mental capabilities by their physical limitations. Christy Brown was indeed an inspirational person who overcame a lot. However, Brown's writing style is simple and on the surface, lacking real depth and detail. He tries to be deep and intellectual at times, but it just comes off as overly dramatic and cheesy. It felt like I was reading a 13 year-old's diary...interesting enough stories within it, but not well-written at all. The only redeeming factor is that the book is short and a quick read. However, I would not recommend this to anyone.