Michael Bellusci of The Humana Chronicles and The Dream Nation writes the political and philosophical backgrounds right into his fantasy tale around the early 1800’s. Unfortunately, Bellusci’s valiant attempt does not work for his novel. Bellusci tries to do too much, pulling in background information around characters, an ideal nation, the role of citizens and leaders, political structure and process. Tolkien reflected his background concepts around Middle Earth in his characters and storyline of The Lord of the Rings.

Just like Tolkien, Bellusci decries industrialization. But his thinking and opinions about our current industrial and technological problems take centre stage when one of his main characters, King Mathius, envisions the creation of an ideal nation state. I kept having to confirm that this story was set around 1812. Time and again, Bellusci uses modern terminology unbeknownst to this era, words like national stewardship. “One of his goals is to better integrate humans with nature and implement the practise of national stewardship.” This conceptual thinking is not reflective of any years around 1812 but of the 21st century.

The five main human characters in The Humana Chronicles and The Dream Nation mirror good and evil. Two male characters are identical twins with the “idealistic good” twin appointed heir to the throne, and the “pragmatic bad” twin as military general/warrior for the nation. The third man is the catalyst with amazing abilities of being a scientist, magician, architect, healer, inventor, and weapons manufacturer. For the two women, the chambermaid performs the evil, conniving role who uses her womanly ways to get what she wants, and the woman who runs a horse farm with her father becomes a poetess, love interest, and queen for the good king. None of the characters develop realism or depth where the reader truly cares and identifies with the characters’ struggles. When the scientist/magician receives a termination letter from the absent good king, he never consults with the queen or other non-existent court people, instead taking the word of the scheming chambermaid. This is a prime example of how isolated the characters are in this novel where the primary goal is to move the story forward to evolve the nation-state, the principal character.

Michael Bellusci has obviously spent enormous amounts of time and effort writing The Humana Chronicles and The Dream Nation. His concerns for the existing state of power and influence of nations overridden by technology, industrialization and all out greed carry greater weight than the niceties around a fictional story. By eliminating the fictional story, Bellusci could use his concepts to write a PhD thesis.

Book Synopsis
The Humana Chronicles and the Dream Nation represents a journey of passion in the search for a higher state of human existence. The route that provides the ultimate escape from a world in constant turmoil is the last hope for humankind. Written in allegorical style, the Humana Chronicles ominously illustrates the primary obstacles of human intransigence.

Buy this book at Amazon.ca

Our troubles often reveal weak areas in our life that we need to improve. Franklin tries to reach people with all sorts of problems so this is not the type of book which can be read from cover to cover. A self-assessment questionnaire in the second chapter will pinpoint which chapters you need to focus on. When reading chapters you are weak in, Franklin shares enlightening ideas to help explore your weakness along with tips and “motivational speak”. On the opposite end, by reading chapters in your strength areas, you will find the content full of obvious common sense and quite tedious.

Franklin researched writings separated into seven areas of Faith, Family, Fitness, Friends, Finance, Fun, and Final Goodbye which Franklin called “Death and Taxes”. Guts culminates into a portal for other self-help books that the author integrates and attributes well.

The author is obsessed with acronyms. I found it annoying overall and can truthfully say that not one acronym stuck. But outside of that, four of Franklin’s ideas that I can easily recount are to answer the phone with a smile; we do not have control over what pops into our heads, but we do have control over what stays there; the hardest things with adult children is to stand back and wait; and the state of worry is not about caring, it’s that you don’t trust the process.

The main disagreement I have with this book is in the parenting section. Franklin says, “To be effective in our role, we need to seek help from parenting courses or books on parenting.” Most of the people who write these parenting self-help books or parenting courses have their past experiences at parenting as the qualifying criteria. Parenting blogs and social media advice benefit from the same qualifying criteria. The best advice is to turn to the original source. Talk to any parents with grown kids, grandparents or extended family. First-time parents often bemoan the unwanted opinions, pouring in from everywhere, including strangers. If you like how a young teenager is turning out, or a person of any age, then go talk to his or her parents about what they did to raise a person like that. Some intergenerational discussion might be helpful. But even those parents who feel they have made very regrettable mistakes in childrearing will be able to say where they went wrong. Hindsight is often the best teacher.

The overriding principle in raising children is to always take the long-term view in what would be best for the child in the long-run. Every parent’s job is to work towards raising children who once they are adults will be in the best position possible to make good decisions and to be independent. That kind of thinking requires self-discipline and sacrifice on the part of the parents. Unfortunately, it is so much easier to take the short-term view in parenting and do what makes the parent’s life easier.

Integrating technology into good parenting appears to be more of a challenge for today’s parents, something not addressed in this book. It saddens me to see little ones sitting at a fast food restaurant with their parent(s) who are absorbed in their phones and ignoring their little ones. A perfect moment for family bonding, conversation and teaching but lost to the self-absorbed parents, a prime example of the dearth of long-term thinking in favour of personal short-term gains.

Guts is about challenging oneself to be a better person, learning how to forgive ourselves. That a person who consistently has a positive attitude always outperforms a negative thinker. Filled with loads of statements that a person could write on stickies and post all over the house. If you have kids at the cusp of adulthood, then they will find value in the last two chapters of this book. “Fun”, which should be called Attitude, and “Life is a Do-It-Yourself Project” are must reads. With that, I will insert a few stickies and hand the book off to a friend in need.

For our lifestyle, family and home to become what we desire it to be they each need to be healthy and balanced. For that to happen our everyday stresses need to be addressed. To create awareness in relation to stress, health and balanced living within our lifestyles, families and homes Betty Franklin introduces us to the Balance Wheel of Health and Well-being and the Six F’s – Family, Fitness, Friends, Finance, Fun, Faith.

In GUTS, Get Uncomfortable To Succeed, she incorporates uncomplicated concepts for living, evidence-based knowledge and experience with life principles and strategies. It gives the reader a better understanding of how stress, influenced by our thoughts, emotions, habits and relationships, as well as our physical, nutritional, financial and spiritual health are interrelated and affect not only our health but our lifestyles, families and homes. GUTS shows you how to move out of your comfort zone, expand your boundaries and imagination, and achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Buy this book at Amazon.ca

The book strikes at the heart of parents’ dilemma whether to institutionalize a handicapped baby right from the beginning or to care for the baby at home. As Donna’s husband asked her once, “Why do you always feel guilty about everything?” That is the crux every mother has to face when a difficult dilemma forces an honest evaluation of needs and wants for the child, the mother, and the family. “The minute he walked out our door, many of the hassles and complications vanished along with him. That’s what hurt the most.”

Kirk left me wanting more information about Matthew as I too wanted to find Matthew. What kind of music did Matthew like? Did Matthew watch television? What shows did he like? How did his tastes in music and television change over the years? Did Marguerite or Beverly ever try flash cards to communicate? If he could sign for some things, couldn’t he sign other things? Did anyone ever try assisted computer programs to communicate? What did Marguerite talk to him about? How was he in church? Did he try to sing? What did he become enthused about in church?

If this book was a biography Matthew, the author should have included chapters from his father, his siblings, along with his other caregivers like Marguerite, his live-in mom for over 11 years, Beverley, Lisa, Bunmi, and Pastor Joel, his pastor for over 14 years. Many holes leaves the reader clamouring to find out more about Matthew.

Three questions troubled Donna which book clubs could explore for discussions:
1) What was going on with Matthew when he touched or “thunked” his head with his hand? The psychiatrist interpreted Matthew as hearing voices in his head. Donna, his mother didn’t think he was hearing voices; she always thought his actions indicated a headache. Could Matthew have been signaling that he had thoughts he wanted to share? What did his Marguerite think?

2) Matthew swallowed a variety of different objects over his lifetime which usually occurred after a period of restlessness and/or rage or extreme frustration. The doctors called this pica incidents or behaviours, common for people with developmental disabilities. Why did Matthew swallow? Was it a form of Matthew expressing his frustration and hopelessness? Could this be a similar behaviour to teenagers who engage in cutting? Inflicting physical pain as a sign of emotional pain and stress? Did Matthew’s pica behaviour damage the upper sphincter muscles at the top of his esophagus, that close off the windpipe, which in turn caused his later health problems?

3) What kind of mental illness did Matthew suffer from? Later in his life, Matthew expressed more anger mixed with anxiety. His doctor diagnosed him as having depression with severe anxiety, and later agitated depression. What is depression? It’s a feeling of hopeless over one’s current situation and for the future. Was Matthew bored with life, alternatively angry and frustrated? What if he had far more to say and just couldn’t express himself with the tools he had available?

With so many questions arising about Matthew’s life, the focus turns to whether this is a biography about the mother. Kirk tells of her thought processes, decisions, and experiences in helping her child into some form of independence within the maze of his mental disabilities, institutional rigidity, community out-reach, and the medical establishment. But here to, critical understanding is lost. It was a shock to learn mid-way through the book that Donna had been educated in early childhood education at a university , that her husband and her had built a house when they had three very young children, that the other two children were educated in private schools, that her mother who had supported her and Matthew so much had died 8 years before Matthew died. These are significant events in the life of a decision maker such as Donna Kirk, leaving readers with a glass only half-empty.

Finding Matthew focuses on Matthew’s pivots events from a developmentally and mentally disabled newborn, to a toddler, teenager, and adult. Donna Kirk pulls us through the painful moments as she strives to enable her son to become independent of family and finally institutional care. Along the way, she understands that her and the rest of her family’s well-being must also be considered. Kirk instinctively realizes that harbouring and silencing questions costs; instead she questions and challenges old school preconceived notions of loved ones with disabilities. Finding Matthew reveals Kirk and her husband as forerunners to more progressive care of the mentally handicapped from institutions into the communities.

“So many things in the book resonate: the sorrows, struggles, and challenges, as well as the guilt and despair — and, through it all, the surprising and amazing presence of love and joy — that come with being a parent of a child with a disability.”  –Jim Triantafilou, Executive Director, Brampton Caledon Community Living

“...a true story in several senses ... true to life in general, true to family life in particular, and true to medicine ... a wonderful book.”  –Gerald Taylor, M.D., Mississauga, Ontario

During the first few weeks after Matthew Kirk was born — brain-damaged as a result of oxygen deprivation during delivery — the doctors advised his parents, Donna and Ed Kirk, to put him in an institution, have another baby as soon as possible, and get on with their life. But what the doctors didn’t understand was that Matthew was their life. Indeed, as he grew, he would surprise everyone with his athletic good looks, spirited personality, and supreme ability to create joy and love as so many people gathered around to help him through his physical and mental struggles. Now, with the publication of this clear-eyed, laugh-inducing, and heart-tugging book, Donna Kirk recounts the story — the love story — of how she and her family found Matthew, and how he found them. Donna Kirk is also the author of short stories, which have been published in The Daily American, Ars Medica, CommuterLit, and The Quick Brown Fox. She lives with her husband, Ed, in Oakville, Ontario.

Buy this book at Amazon.ca.

• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by admin.
• This topic was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by admin.

The first five pages of the book in the first chapter “Unanswered Prayers” will lose a lot of non-Christian readers immediately with the heavy inundation of God. This could have been rewritten to be more inclusion of all religions, and belief system. Author Elizabeth Hutchinson pulls God into every aspect of her book. The author would be better off to withdraw any claims of being non-denominational.

The author leaps from practical examples to broad generalizations. Hutchinson points out how cleaning a house only comes with looking, taking action, and continuing to do so to removes chaos in the house, and within ourselves. Suddenly the author asks “Now you may ask, If it is so easy why isn’t everyone doing it and why are we living with war, famine, and family violence? And you know what? God asks the same question.” Then after these huge questions, Hutchinson goes back to how to clean, one room at a time. This transition from practical example to broad social questions, and back to the first practical example without answering the important broad social questions show poor continuity. A good editor would have caught many problems including the flawed thought flows, overuse of passive verbs, too many ‘ands’, and frequent word repetition.

Hutchinson has spent much of her life helping and teaching others through the social and victim services systems. Many of her teachings in this book revolve around what she has learned from other people’s experiences, books, and conferences. She uses these multi-faceted experiences including her own burnout to illustrate how to free oneself to find one’s full potential. She covers areas many people struggle with: mediation, forgiveness, fear, resentment, resistance, impatience.

Although her topics are vital in each person’s life, I found that much of what she details is basic common sense laden with Christian inferences. Written as revelations, these details would have evolved from inadequate behavioural patterns she observed in people she had assisted in her extensive career. The preponderance of common sense in this book will appeal to a very restricted audience. If only Hutchinson had written without the biblical and Christian references, her book would have been truly non-denominational and useful to the social services sector.