Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper

651 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: INTERVIEW WITH parents of a disabled child

I was deeply touched by this book. I found myself in tears as I read of the challenges and triumphs of the main character Melody. Due to the short period of time we had to read this book, I thought I would skim through it and try and find the main highlights to write this post. I found that after the first chapter, I was hooked and read the book in one sitting. I could not put the book down. That to me is a sign of an amazing writer and Sharon M. Draper is all of that, if not more. She speaks of her reason for writing this poignant and meaning story of a brilliant mind trapped in an uncooperative body on her website. Ms. Draper has a daughter who is disabled, and so she has first-hand experience in coping with the day-to-day challenges of parenting and loving a not so perfect child.

As Moms, we are always hopeful that we will deliver perfect children, and most of the time we do. When Mother Nature steps in though, and that doesn’t happen, it’s those parents that step up to the plate to raise and love that child that deserve the accolades. One such family that I personally know is my daughter-in-law. Her younger brother is a special needs child and she grew up as a middle-child with the focus on the younger brother. She recently graduated with a degree in Special Needs Education, but instead chose to pursue another path with younger children. After a life-time of dedication to her younger brother, she decided to take a break. When I met her family, I was in awe of the love and care, the dedication to the brother and the sacrifices that the other family made in order to raise him at home. He just turned twenty-two and graduated from a special school, with honor and pride. Much of what I read in this amazing book remin...

... middle of paper ...

...oks like has nothing to do with how well your brain works! You ought to know that by looking in the mirror!”

Although this story is fiction, it is based on the reality of very intelligent children that have disabilities, whether born with them or developing after birth. The spirit in which Melody triumphed over the class at the end of the book, after missing the opportunity to participate and probably win the competition for them is inspiring. The author brings the reader to the brinks of despair at the thought of Melody losing her sister, and then shows us how what seemed life-changing the day before is insignificant in the light of what is really important. Love of family, love of life and love for each other. I wept as I read the words “I love you” that Melody spoke to her parents for the first time. Melody became everyone’s child in that moment.

Show More
Related

  • The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.

    Read More

  • Trouble In Mind by Leon F. Litwack

    1509 Words  | 4 Pages

    Leon F. Litwack is the author of Trouble in Mind. Litwack is an American historian and professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. He was born in 1929 in Santa Barbara, California. In 1951, Litwack received is Bachelor Degree and then continued to further his education. In 1958, he received his Ph. D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager wrote the book that sparked Litwack's curiosity in history. The book was The Growth of the American Republic. Litwack was in the eleventh grade when he first discovered his interest in history. In 1964, Litwack began teaching at the University of California, where he taught an excess of 30,000 students. Litwack has written other books besides Trouble in Mind. One of the books he wrote was Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery in 1979. In 1980, Litwack was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history of this book and in 1981 he was the winner of the National Book Award. He also wrote North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free State, 1790-1860, Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, and The Harvard Guide to African-American History. Litwack has also won many including, the Francis Parkman Prize, the American Book Award, and he was elected to the presidency of the Organization of American Historians. In addition to this, Litwack has been an outstanding teacher and received two notable teaching awards. Litwack's first teaching position was at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he taught from 1958 to 1964. He also taught at the University of South Carolina, Louisiana State University, and the University of Mississippi. As one can see, not only has Litwack been an exceptionally outstanding author, he has also been a very popular and influential teacher.

    Read More

  • Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

    636 Words  | 2 Pages

    Out of the Dust is a 1934 historical fiction novel written by Karen Hesse. The setting of the novel is in a struggling farm in Joyce City in Oklahoma. The novel talks of the challenges faced by Billie Jo a 13 year old girl and her family. It tells of Billie’s struggles a she grows up in Oklahoma Dust Bowl during the depression. Billie’s father was a farmer but his crops fail to nourish because of the drought but Billie is determined to make a better life for herself. Billie was a pianist and got a chance to travel around town with other aspiring performers but her mother never gave her the support she desperately needed. She decided to escape but her escape was halted by a horrific accident which let to her mother and her baby brother being bed ridden and later died. The accident left Billie Jo with severe burns on her hands until she could not play the piano the way she use to. However much she tried doing, she felt a lot of pain. She ran a way from home after she thinks that her father does not support her, later on she comes back home and mends her relationship with her father. She meets Louise who her father had met and she starts rebuilding her life. The family in Out of the Dust faces dust storms and an economic disaster resulting from the drought.

    Read More

  • Another Place at the Table: Synopsis

    1299 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kathy Harrison starts her personal story happily married to her childhood sweet heart Bruce. Kathy was living a simple life in her rural Massachusetts community home as the loving mother of three smart, kind, well-adjusted boys Bruce Jr., Nathan, and Ben. With the natural transitions of family life and the changes that come with career and moving, she went back to work as a Head Start teacher. Her life up until the acceptance of that job had been sheltered an idyllic. Interacting in a world of potluck suppers, cocktail parties, and traditional families had nothing in common with the life she would choose after she became a Head Start teacher.

    Read More

  • Disciplined Hearts by Theresa O'Nell

    1268 Words  | 3 Pages

    I enjoyed reading Disciplined Hearts by Theresa O'Nell because i find that many people today do not know a lot about the Native American culture and what they have been through. Their cultures history is not talked about as much the African American or Hispanic's are. Most Americans know about the hardships that the African American and Hispanics had to overcome to assimilate to the level that they are today. I think O'Nell is trying to talk about the history of the Native American culture because, she believes that the reason that their culture is not well-known because of the fact that they have chosen to keep living like their ancestors and not assimilate to the American culture.

    Read More

  • Growing Up Empty by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many policy issues that affect families in today’s society. Hunger is a hidden epidemic and one major issue that American’s still face. It is hard to believe that in this vast, ever growing country, families are still starving. As stated in the book Growing Up Empty, hunger is running wild through urban, rural, and even suburban communities. This paper will explore the differing perspectives of the concerned camp, sanguine camp, and impatient camp. In addition, each camps view, policy agenda, and values that underlie their argument on hunger will be discussed.

    Read More

  • The Best People I Changed By Leslie Soberanis

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    On an ordinary day, Leslie opens the main door of her house, when she walked inside she saw her mom and sister Islla sitting on the coach. Islla was crying, and Leslie ask her “What happened?’ Why you crying?’”. Islla told her that she is pregnant and that she wants to keep the baby even if her boyfriend will be against the baby, but she will need to drop out from her University. In a few minutes of thinking, Leslie decided and told her sister “You don’t need to drop out I will help you to babysit with my nephew.”

    Read More

  • Unko

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem “Jamie” by Elizabeth Brewster, Brewster conveys the feeling of being isolated from the rest of society. By becoming deaf, people experienced bitterness, loneliness and anger, and eventually became a social outcast who is as unloquacious as a stone. But if we have desire and passion for our life, even we have disability; we would have a better life. Through the poem “Jamie”, the author also illustrates the importance of having desire for our life.

    Read More

  • Happiness: Enough Already, By Sharon Begley

    1153 Words  | 3 Pages

    People push being happy on society as a total must in life; sadness is not an option. However, the research that has conducted to the study of happiness speaks otherwise. In this essay Sharon Begley's article "Happiness: Enough Already" critiques and analyzes societies need to be happy and the motivational affects it has on life. Begley believes that individuals do not always have to be happy, and being sad is okay and even good for us. She brings in the research of other professionals to build her claim that extreme constant happiness is not good for people. I strongly agree that we need to experience sadness to build motivation in life and character all around.

    Read More

  • Death's Waiting List by Sally Satel

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.

    Read More

  • Without Conscience by Robert D. Hare

    1924 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Without Conscience" by Robert D. Hare is one aimed towards making the general public aware of the many psychopaths that inhabit the world we live in. Throughout the book Hare exposes the reader to a number of short stories; all with an emphasis on a characteristic of psychopaths. Hare makes the claim that close monitoring of psychopathy are vital if we ever hope to gain a hold over Psychopathy- A disorder that affects not only the individual but also society itself. He also indicates one of the reasons for this book is order to correctly treat these individuals we have to be able to correctly identify who meets the criteria. His ultimate goal with the text is to alleviate some of the confusion in the increase in criminal activity by determining how my of this is a result of Psychopathy.

    Read More

  • Review Of Sharon Draper's 'Out Of My Mind'

    469 Words  | 1 Pages

    Out of My Mind is a book by Sharon Draper. Out of My Mind is about a girl named, Melody with cerebral palsy.She is unable to move or speak, Melody uses her Medi-Talker to communicate. Although Melody is very intelligent because she has a photographic memory, she has to endure being bullied and teased by the other kids without disabilities. I believe this book deserves 3 stars because of the plot, language, and the character development.

    Read More

  • Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.

    Read More

  • Lar Gottlieb How To Land Your Kid In Therapy Summary

    868 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some parents put their children up on a pedestal, and treat them as if they are the most prized creatures on the Earth. Parents think that they raise their children right, but Gottlieb makes a valid point when she states, “As a parent, I wanted to do things right. But what does ‘right’ mean?” I like how Gottlieb uses the story of the child tripping over a rock. When the kid falls, some parents would come to the rescue, and cuddle the child before they even start to cry. Even though they mean well, I feel like these parents are not even thinking of how a scenario as simple as this can affect their children later in life. This example reflects that even the overprotective and “good” parents end up having children that are lost and unhappy because they did not show any discipline and organization. Dan Kindlon, a children’s psychologist that Gottlieb mentioned, explained, “There’s a difference between being loved and being constantly monitored.” This made me think of a friend whom goes to West Georgia who I will call Ella. She grew up with the constant surveillance of her

    Read More

  • Spinster, by Sylvia Plath

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Spinster” by Sylvia Plath is a poem that consists of a persona, who in other words serves as a “second self” for the author and conveys her innermost feelings. The poem was written in 1956, the same year as Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes, who was also a poet. The title suggests that the persona is one who is not fond of marriage and the normal rituals of courtship as a spinster is an unmarried woman, typically an older woman who is beyond the usual age of marriage and may never marry. The persona of the poem is a woman who dislikes disorder and chaos and finds relationships to be as unpredictable as the season of spring, in which there is no sense of uniformity. In this poem, Plath not only uses a persona to disclose her feelings, but also juxtaposes the seasons and their order (or lack thereof) and relates them to the order that comes with solitude and the disorder that is attributed with relationships. She accomplishes this through her use of formal diction, which ties into both the meticulous structure and develops the visual imagery.

    Read More

More about Out of my Mind by Sharon M. Draper

Open Document