Seven Keys to Unlock Autism by Elaine Hall & Diane Isaacs

This is another book review that I did for the Amazon Vine Program. As a mother of a high functioning autistic son, I was thrilled to see how these women wrote a book with understanding of these special children. It is always obvious to me when someone is writing from the base of personal knowledge or one where they read some information about autism or saw Rainman and base all of what they write on these misconceptions.

Seven Keys to Unlock Autism: Making Miracles in the Classroom by Elaine Hall and Diane Isaacs

As a mother of an autistic man, I read this book with great interest. Both of the author’s of this book have boys that are autistic and it shows. It shows in their deep understanding of ones who live with this day in and day out. They aren’t talking ‘theory’ but what they have learned in the trenches and through their work with other autistic children and those that work with them.
Although this book is directed at teachers, it would be good for anyone in contact with autistic children and adults to read to get a fuller understanding of these people that due to developmental difficulties don’t progress at the same levels as so called ‘normal’ people. Actually at times they progress faster and then some things are very or completely delayed. Even if a teacher doesn’t have an autistic child in their classroom, the many ‘keys’ given in this book, I would think, would be helpful in maintaining a smoothly functioning classroom.
The last statistic that I saw on autism stated that 1 in 110 children have this difficulty. Some may have autism mildly and others much more profoundly, yet each of these child can teach us something and all of them want their voices to be heard. By learning more about them and how they function you will be doing yourself and them a favor of being someone that understands their needs and desires and can help bring understanding to others.

The Color of Rain by Michael and Gina Spehn

This is from a book review I did for the Amazon Vine program. I'm very behind in reviews that I would have liked to have written this year as it has been a rough year physically with 2 surgeries on my knees. I have found that too much pain keeps me from reading anything deeper than a cozy mystery. Hoping to get more on track this winter.

The Color of Rain: How two families found faith, hope & love in the midst of tragedy by Michael and Gina Spehn

This book was certainly a tear jerker. Gina nurses and cares for her husband with cancer and during cancer treatments over the course of three years. He dies on Christmas day leaving her a widow with two young boys. She is blessed to have a huge church family and supportive neighborhood that pitched in with food, help and prayers both before and after his death.

Michael's wife, a member of the same church as Gina, hears of her troubles and writes an email to Gina's friend asking what she can do to help this sad family. She never gets a chance to help herself though, as a month later she too dies from a fast growing brain tumor. Michael is left with three children, two boys and girl.

This book is how they came together to help each other in their grief and how God put love for each other in their hearts and they eventually marry and combine families with full support of their children and relatives.

This is a charming book of people helping people. Of people letting God lead the direction in which they should walk. It also shows the often forgotten outpouring of love to the bereft families in the way of food and help. Michael and Gina got so much help, that they had to turn it aside finally, but how nice if more people thought of doing this act of charity towards others in distress and medical problems. This book includes pictures of the family. There is one big editing flaw that I found. No one double checked the spelling of the medications that were mentioned and there certainly was some creative spellings. Read this book with a box of tissue nearby.

I truly enjoyed this book even though there were times that the tears were flowing down my face. I love seeing how God can work and minister in people's lives, especially as they walk through the deep dark valleys of life.

Freeman Process Service

What in the world does Freeman Process Service have to do with books? Well the truth is, not much except for the fact that it is run by my son Ron Freeman who is a great lover of books and when we get together he is always ready with an oral book report for me. I've had a lousy summer and am now recuperating from surgery so haven't been up to doing many book reviews myself but have several books lined up to review when my head is a bit clearer (currently on many narcotics for pain). Ron lives in the Columbus, Ohio area with his lovely wife and is happy to help you out in your process servicing needs, especially those lawyers and legal types in other states that aren't hooked in with a process server for the State of Ohio. Get to know more about Ron and his strangely funky views on life at his blog: I Trust Ron Freeman.