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Loading... Another Place at the Table (2003)by Kathy Harrison
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Kathy's Harrison's memoir of her life as a foster parent to over one hundred children is at times funny, sad, and heart-wrenching, but always completely honest. She is honest about her own failures and weaknesses, about the difficulty in fostering troubled children, about the many shortcomings of the foster care system, and about the tremendous need each child in that system has for a loving, attentive family. She sugarcoats nothing, yet manages to show the reader each sweet, loving, unique child she took in under the labels of "abused," "troubled" and "mentally ill." Selected Reading Questionnaire. This glimpse into foster care enlivens my heart to a multi-paradox: In reading thine parts of intersecting lives I experience: terror, anger,and pity juxtaposed by love, humor and hope. At all of my empathy and sympathy struggles to contain, forcing to read and consider though tears, both visible and invisible. For all these God must continue to intervene--I must borrow, among other things, his mercy and empathy. This memoir tells it like it is. Kathy Harrison does not sugar coat anything she has seen or has felt and as a reader we can see and feel what she has lived through and for. This book let's us into a world few of us understand. It opens our eyes and our hearts to those who take in children and who really do care for each of them. It is definitely one of my favorites. no reviews | add a review
The startling and ultimately uplifting narrative of one woman's thirteen-year experience as a foster parent. For more than a decade, Kathy Harrison has sheltered a shifting cast of troubled youngsters-the offspring of prostitutes and addicts; the sons and daughters of abusers; and teenage parents who aren't equipped for parenthood. All this, in addition to raising her three biological sons and two adopted daughters. What would motivate someone to give herself over to constant, largely uncompensated chaos? For Harrison, the answer is easy. Another Place at the Table is the story of life at our social services' front lines, centered on three children who, when they come together in Harrison's home, nearly destroy it. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)362.733092Social sciences Social problems & social services Social problems of and services to groups of people Child welfare AdoptionLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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