A Slant Of Sun: One Child's Courage [Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Beth Kephart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1999

At a time when as many as one in five children face the challenge of growing up with a behavioral disorder, more and more parents are finding themselves at a loss to know how best to raise their children.

For Beth Kephart’s son, the diagnosis was "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified"—a broad spectrum of difficulties, including autistic features. As the author and her husband discover, all that label really means is that their son Jeremy is "different in a million wonderful ways, and also different in ways that need our help."

In intimate, incandescent prose, Kephart shares the painful and inspiring experience of loving a child whose "special needs" bring tremendous frustration and incalculable rewards. "What, in the end, are you fighting for: Normal?" Kephart asks. "Is normal possible? Can it be defined? . . . And is normal superior to what the child inherently is, to what he aspires to, fights to become, every second of his day?"

With the help of passionate parental involvement and the kindness of a few open hearts, Jeremy slowly emerges from a world of obsessive play rituals, atypical language constructions, endless pacing, and lonely frustrations. Triumphantly, he begins to engage others, describe his thoughts and passions, build essential friendships. Ultimately this is a story of the shallowness of medical labels compared to a child's courage and a mother's love, of which Kephart writes, "Nothing erodes it. It is not sand on a beach. It is the nuclear heart of things—hard as the rock of this earth."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The hardest part of being a parent is the certain knowledge that there are some things you can't control. When Beth Kephart's son Jeremy was labeled with the unsettlingly vague diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorder (a behavioral disorder related to autism) in the fall of 1991, there were no definitive medical answers, no guidebooks to Jeremy's inner world, no maps to help Jeremy's mom and dad lead their boy back into the land of relatively uncomplicated childhood. Jeremy was a beautiful child who screamed whenever strangers came near him and spent long hours every day obsessively rearranging his toy cars into indecipherable patterns. He was an early talker, but by the time of his diagnosis Jeremy's speech had degenerated into mindless parroting--a condition known as echolalia. Jeremy's triumph over his disability and his journey to reintegration is the primary story of this beautifully written book, Kephart's first.

The other story, the more universal story, is the haunting account of the symbiosis between mother and child, which grows particularly intense when a child feels pain from which his mother cannot shield him. Kephart's fears that her own maternal failings are somehow implicated in Jeremy's problem stand out as the emotional core of this memoir. Her faith in her son, perseverance, and eventual acceptance of herself play as important a role in his healing process as any course of therapy--and her unflinching descriptions of her own healing are what make A Slant of Sun such a stunning debut. --Patrizia DiLucchio --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

At two and a half years old, Kephart's son, Jeremy, was diagnosed as suffering from pervasive developmental disorder, a condition that has some of the elements of autism. The child's speech was "atypical," he was terrified of contact with everyone but his parents and grandparents, and his life became characterized by certain behaviors that became obsessions. Because his situation was so anomalous, even professionals used to dealing with so-called exceptional children were at a loss as to how to cope with Jeremy at times. But the Pennsylvania-based author and her husband, Bill, after blaming themselves for the child's difficulties and encountering problems with experts, determined to deal with their son on his own terms and to modify his behavior without wrenching him away from his few interests, ranging from trains and cars to planes and trucks, and by letting him set his own pace when encountering other children and adults. They also chose his schools wisely, with the result that Jeremy now functions well in society at age nine. Freelancer Kephart conveys her frantic reaction to the original diagnosis, her furious desire to change conditions for Jeremy at once and her ultimate realization that a tangible, positive outcome was possible, given great patience. Kephart tells an affecting story of parental dedication.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape; Unabridged edition (May 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 073664556X
• ISBN-13: 978-0736645560
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,139,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Following the publication of five memoirs and FLOW, the autobiography of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, I've had the great pleasure of turning my attention to young adult fiction. UNDERCOVER and HOUSE OF DANCE were both named a best of the year by Kirkus and Bank Street. NOTHING BUT GHOSTS, A HEART IS NOT A SIZE, and DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS were critically acclaimed. In October YOU ARE MY ONLY will be released by Egmont USA. Next summer, Philomel will release SMALL DAMAGES. I am at work on a prequel to DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS, a novel for adults, and a memoir about teaching. Please visit my blog: http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Family's Courage in the Face of a Mystifying Diagnosis, January 6, 2000

By 

Jean Ashburn (Philadelphia, Pa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage (Hardcover)

I love "A Slant of Sun," a first book by Beth Kephart, a memoir for her nine-year-old son Jeremy. This book is about everything that matters in relationships, whether son and mother, husband and wife, friends. It's about acceptance and compassion and anger and courage. It's about stripping life down to its essentials to find out what the essentials are. What does it matter if your son has good manners or a sensible bedtime if he has not, in the course of his young life, found the words, any words, that will order the rest of his life? I love you, Mommy. I want cereal. I want to play.

Diagnosed at age two with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified, Jeremy had obsessions and rituals and fears and no language to express his need for them. He loved cars and arranging them in precise, unvarying patterns. He was terrified of strangers, of any disruption in his day. The picture on the cover of the book is of Jeremy, alone and facing the world from his front porch, wearing the too-big green hat that for a time was his equivalent of Dorothy's ruby slippers, a bit of protection, a hedged bet against a world that wanted him to be like other kids. And a badge, too, that said, "I'm not like other kids. I hope I find my way, but it will be my way."

In fact, that's how it was. Today, he is on the verge of third grade, a move forward that, like all new things, has him a little nervous. "I know," he confides to his mother, "that I'm not good at transitions." He agreed to having a bunch of strangers in his house for a party in honor of the publication of the book for which he was the inspiration and the hero as long as he could leave and play soccer in the backyard when he felt like it. He not only held his own, he held forth.

I know because I was there. I met Kephart through her bread and butter work as a freelance business writer. I met Jeremy when I learned that his diagnosis was the same as the one pinned on my sister's child, who is three years younger than Jeremy and who, like Jeremy, is gifted in many ways and has eyes you could drown in. I hoped, like everyone who loves a child and sees him suffering, for a prescription. That is not what I found, either in knowing Jeremy or in reading the book about him. I found, as another reviewer has noted, "an extended poem" about the healing power of love. That, ultimately, is what makes this book worth reading.

Jeremy's extraordinary progress through his disorder is, implacably, his story and his alone. The disorder is too broad for it to be otherwise. Kephart - though she knows the science of PDDNOS and autism well enough to be asked to lecture at Johns Hopkins - is as bewildered as anyone. She writes, "It seems to me that the stronger Jeremy grows, the more confounding becomes the incipient question: Just what has happened here? Five years ago we saw our child disappearing - a rapid descent into silence. We met with doctors. We were given terminology. The terminology was a dark room, a dead end....Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified is a label extended to tens of thousands of children....It's an active search on the Internet. But it remains, in my mind, nothing more than a cipher, a way of saying, "We are not quite sure what's wrong."

What is universal, and right, in "Slant" and what Kephart expresses with honesty and exquisite language is the maddening collaboration of heartbreak, joy, rage, and simple sweetness that defines love -- whether you're a small boy demanding that the world take you green hat and all or a mother faced with diagnoses, haunted by imagined inadequacies, exhausted with daily and alternating frustration and progress, cognizant of prices to be paid if this road is taken over that road, and utterly charmed, still, by the hat. "On all the [hat] trees, on all the branches, among all those dozens of leaves, there could not be a more controversial choice," she writes.

"A Slant of Sun" is the real deal. It's a compelling story, compellingly told. It will hold up to the light.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Slant of Sun, January 28, 2000

By 

Joanne Lang (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage (Hardcover)

A Slant of Sun, is the beautifully written story of one boy's triumph over a diagnosis of "pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified". Authored by his mother, Beth Kephart, we are taken on a journey through the heartaches, frustrations and joys of their relationship to each other and to the world. Ms. Kephart eloquently brings to our awareness the fact that each child is unique and that each parent has the opportunity to alter the course of a life by his or her willingness to challenge conventional thinking. Through the author's determination and love for her son and by Jeremy's strength, she guides and supports him in his courageous struggle. Ms. Kephart has the unique ability to bare her soul while maintaining the book's focus on her son and his day-by-day victories. For any one who has ever loved a child, A Slant of Sun promises to engross you with its depth, honesty and bravery.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful, engrossing book, August 9, 2000

By 

Shannon Smithey - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage (Hardcover)

Beth Kephart writes very well. I was totally hooked on this book after reading only a few pages. She is both a fierce advocate for her son and an interesting analyst of his difficulties. She takes us through her own journey and that of her son, from the first suspicions that something is wrong, through the struggle for a diagnosis, through the therapy and her realization that sometimes she ought to trust her instincts about her son more than the opinions of the experts. Though my own child does not suffer from any of Jeremy's problems, I gained considerable insight about parenting from this book.

You are likely to find this story fascinating whether you have any children or not.