BOOK REVIEW

Nancy Gongloff is not only a friend of our Executive Director's, but a retired Registered Nurse. With a BS from Syracuse University and a year of post graduate training in Drug Treatment, Nancy has been gracious enough to utilize her background in health and medicine by offering to review some books that may be of interest to our families and supporters.

Bring on the Blessings, by Beverly Jenkins was recommended as a possible resource for foster and adoptive parents, but mostly it functions more like comic relief.  On those days when fostering and adopting seems like one of your worst ideas, doesn't it sound like fun to think about a divorcee with $275,000,000 who buys a dying town in Kansas, rebuilds it, and fills it with five foster children, five foster families and all the other town residents who pledge their time and resources to housing, feeding, educating and loving these children?  It takes a village to raise a child, and that's just what we're given in this book.  Each child gets a couple of pages of explanation of how they got here, has a couple of incredibly wise and wonderful adult responses to their naughtiness, and is set on the path to fulfilling all of the promise they hold.  Oh, by the way, did I mention that the children include a musical prodigy, an 11 year old carjacker, and an asthmatic who is incredibly bright and loves literature and history?  How about the foster parent retired marine, the pediatrician, and the famous R&B singer who hasn't been able to sing since a violent incident?  No inconveniences here: no meds, no drugs, no sexual abuse, no other children in the town, no siblings, no parents who remain in the picture.  

This is a fun read, but not to be construed as fact.  Enjoy!