Book Review!!!

I'm a little late to the party........but I finally got around to ordering Hartley Steiner's new book, "This is Gabriel Making Sense of School."  It arrived today from Amazon, and I hurriedly ripped open the box on the way to the girls' soccer game and ran out the door with it, thinking I would read it at the game.

Well.......I arrived at the game with it in hand, and my Mom and sister both read through it.  My sister is a special education teacher in Minnesota, and is here visiting for a couple of weeks.  Both my Mom and my sister were instantly impressed with both the simplicity and the depth of the information provided.  (Any of us that have ever attempted to explain SPD to anyone can relate to the difficulty of making the explanation simple, without being too deep--all at the same time.)

Soccer games are always more chaotic than I tell myself that they will be/should be.  So....I left the soccer game with the book still unread, and actually sat on the book for most of the game, as Jennica spotted the brightly-illustrated cover on one of her many passes by my seat, and demanded to read it immediately, rather than go back into the game.  So the book became my temporary seat cushion as I "hid it" from her to keep her from this distraction.  :)

And then home again.  And then dinner.  And finally bedtime, and out came the book.  So my first real read was with my 6-year-old SPD daughter planted firmly on my lap. 

First, I want to say that I enjoyed this book!  The information IS deep enough, and yet simplistic at the same time!!  The illustrations are bright and engaging!  I fully intend to share this book with our principal, our schoolteacher, our paraeducator, our occupational therapist, and virtually everyone else that I can convince to read it! 

My own positive review aside, my daughter recognized herself in this book!  Over and over and over!!!  She kept saying, "Just like me!" as I read to her about Gabriel.  What a wonderful gift to be able to read this book to her and let her feel like, even for a moment, she is not so alone and that there is another child out there like her!!!

A huge "Thank You!" to Hartley for a job well done!  (You go, Girl!  I look forward to seeing you again in Seattle in November!)

Buy it here:  http://www.amazon.com/This-Gabriel-Making-Sense-School/dp/1426927770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280290234&sr=1-1#_