To the homeschooling community, Michael Farris is legendary. He spends nearly all of his time fighting in courts for the rights of good parents to raise their kids unmolested. I have no doubt that this 'novel' was pieced together from true cases he's worked. For example the setting for this book takes place where arguably the worst case of contrived child abuse in the country's history occurred, which is Eastern Washington State.
Given that background, one should look at this book primarily as an instruction manual for the parents that are interested in raising their kids to be responsible adults. If you want a really well-polished novel, then maybe Tolstoy or Jane Ear.
This book alerts people to the army of 'social workers' that are out there, who look at themselves as 'child advocates' rather than family advocates, and does a great job of explaining who these people are, and how they look at traditional, loving, family, primarily how they look at families that properly discipline (i.e., spank) their kids. For me, it was nothing new, I went to college with these types of (future) social workers, partied with them, and fully learned what they think of traditional families.
From reading the book, one learns right away that social workers are required to respond to anyone with a complaint, even if anonymous - and they will show up at your door to check your kid out. So if someone doesn't like you, maybe a co-worker (or an ex), you are always at risk of a 'visit' and if they see marks, or if you (or your kid) admits punishments of anything more than a timeout, you could be toast. So it's always in one's interest to lie to these people if you do spank, for example, and it's a good idea to teach your kid the same (we basically told our kid that if he talked about our at-home disciple, he'd get a new pair of parents - worked like a charm). Another critical thing to keep in mind, if visited, is the need to immediately get a pediatrician's exam showing that the kid has no marks (if that is indeed the case, if not...you're on your own). Parents are also warned that school teachers are required, by law, to report any 'incorrect parenting' to the authorities...something that I suspect most parents don't know.
Now having said all this, the closest contact I've ever had with these social workers was a friend of my wife's who had their son taken away. Guess what...the parents deserved it (and we told them that), they didn't physically abuse the kid, but they totally neglected him while they were busy running their small business. So I do see both sides...and there are plenty of absolutely horrible parents out there. But there are also many, many, cases of huge numbers of absolutely perfect parents have been charged with felonies because of some of these social workers...
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