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In this autobiographical telling of a family’s generations-long handling of learning disabilities, the author focuses primarily on her story of managing her own dyslexia before raising four children, three of whom experienced some kind of learning disability. As the science around many of these diagnoses was still either in infancy or rapidly changing during the period in which her children were being raised, Lelewer had to do a tremendous amount of improvisation and adapting of her own, trying to better understand how best to communicate and teach her children to accommodate their individual needs. Their struggles manifested in different ways based on their struggles, from wanting to draw as little attention as possible to having violent or unpredictable outbursts. With each child, the author found a way to help them succeed and thrive in a system that was, at best, only beginning to prepare for their difficulties.
Though there are interesting stories that focus on each member of the family and how they found an understanding of their disabilities, much of the book focuses on son Brian. The reasons are obvious: his disabilities seemed to affect him the most, and with so much energy and a penchant for getting into things, he required a great deal of his mother’s attention. Still, there is a great deal of useful information here for readers on how to approach supporting someone with a learning disability and rethinking common solutions in new ways to help clarify for others. While the autobiographical angle of this book is an inspiring, personal tale of overcoming difficulties, there is also much that people can learn from her story, whether they are educators-in-training or simply have someone in their life that is either diagnosed with or presenting symptoms of a learning disability.