Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Visualize the lifeblood flowing through slices of endurance., May 26, 1999
Author Phyllis Green's almost irritatingly breathless prose guides us on the relentless journey with the Apple family. In the sixties, Jeff Apple's disability could not be found in text books. Spinning Straw is perhaps the only biography of an autistic child who is a severe self-injurer. From the age of two-and-a-half, Jeff Apple assaults his own body.Autism is probably the third most common developmental disability. Over 500,000 individuals in the U.S. have some form of autism - identified as a communication disorder that makes it hard to communicate verbally or nonverbally with the outside world. Typical signs are repeated body movements, unusual responses to people or attachments to objects, a resistance to non routine environments, and sometimes, aggressive behavior or self-injurious behavior. [The latter is officially known as "SIB."] An articulate wordsmith, Green, helps Mother Pat Apple share the family's heartache as Jeff's self-violent behavior gets worse. The Apple family becomes submerged into an unknown world, a world with little comprehension. We are inspired through the endurance and determination of the Apple family's everyday life. Despite Jeff Apple's overpowering urge to self-destruct, he provides subsequent insight into the meaning of humanity. This true story stimulates readers to appreciate the true quality of life. In Spinning Straw, the writer delves into a human experience teaching us more about the human condition.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Spinning Straw" has a sense of reality rarely captured, February 26, 2000
Art does not usually imitate life. We usually finish reading a book or viewing a movie and we feel disappointed in life, as though we've been cheated from the media's idea of dramatic, yet glamorous lives. We sometimes even draw in because the half-truths told by film and novels tell us we are odd and unacceptable when we or our circumstances aren't perfect. "Spinning Straw" is different. It is cathartic because it tells the whole story of life. Some of the pictures Phyllis Green paints of Pat Apple's story of her son and family are so lovely you feel the depth of beauty the sun has when peering out of a cloudy sky. Other word pictures hurt your heart they are so sad. But what would life be without its ups and downs? "Spinning Straw" remembers that in order to truly feel we have to feel both pain and ecstatic joy. We do not get to pick one or the other. And I promise you, when you finish reading "Spinning Straw"-- and you will once you start it-- you will agree that life is worth the chance of sadness when happiness is allowed as well, as the story of little Jeff Apple is filled with both extremes.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spinning Straw is not a fairy tale, June 28, 2000
SPINNING STRAW - The Jeff Apple Story - written by Phyllis J.D. Green, related by Patricia M. Apple, is an absorbing story of a child with Serious Injury Behavior. While many treatments are attempted and the unpredictable behavior of Jeff is recorded, the reader marvels at the patience of his parents and care givers and at their ability to keep on hoping something will work. Rumpelstiltskin, a funny looking little man, offered to help the miller's daughter spin straw into gold. In her desperation, she made a deal with him. Jeff Apple's family accepting help from every one that could give them hope of healing for Jeff were as desperate. They spun a lot of straw but never succeeded in spinning it into gold. They never knew more than temporary success. While his parents and kind therapists tried every possible means to teach him to refrain from self injury, Jeff continued to inflict pain and abuse to his person, sometimes injuring those trying to protect and care for him. The reader learns much about SIB and the character of those who seek to keep the sufferers safe from themselves. Such a sad story, Mrs. Green tells. She explains the day by day routines that sometimes worked and the reader became hopeful with the parents and therapists and feels the disappointment and frustration at failure. The reader identifies with the mother, who has to agree to dreadful things like electric shock, restraining sheet, cold showers. The reader knows the anguish and guilt Mrs. Apple felt in allowing her child to be so treated. And yet her desperation made it imperative that she accept these in a hope of saving Jeff from himself. Yes, Pat Apple had to make an awful deal, as the miller's daughter did. Well written, it is not a happy story. It is a epic story of the victory of the human spirit over dreadful circumstances to continue to love and hope. The title SPINNING STRAW is intriguing and apt. - Sybil Austin Skakle
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