|
| Hope's Boy: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Bridge
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy Used: $7.48
You Save: $15.47 (67%)
New (41) Used (28) from $7.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 10391
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401303226
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.733092
EAN: 9781401303228
ASIN: 1401303226
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother Hope shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 50 more reviews...
 Hope's Boy is Haunting and Unforgettable February 5, 2008
52 out of 56 found this review helpful
I was deeply moved by "Hope's Boy," Andrew Bridge's haunting elegy of a childhood that seemed to be lost forever when the author, at age 7, became a ward of the State after being taken from the arms of his young mother on a street corner in North Hollywood, California. Mr. Bridge's unsparing chronicle of his experiences on the front lines of our nation's foster care system -- including his time in a facility that seemed more like a prison camp, and his rearing by a sadistic foster mother, who herself was a prison camp survivor -- opened my eyes more widely to the system's endemic problems than any piece of investigative journalism on the subject ever could. But, at its core, Mr. Bridge's book is a heartbreaking, unforgettable love story about a mother and her son. Even though Mr. Bridge's mother, Hope, appears intermittently throughout his memoir, I felt her presence, even in her absence, on every single page of his book. I don't know that I've ever read anything more powerful about love and loss than Mr. Bridge's searing prose about his mother's embrace as she struggled to hold onto him when he was being pried from her arms. And ultimately, I was inspired by how Hope's love gave the boy, Andy, the strength to pursue, and, ultimately, achieve his goals. The adult Andrew has given a proud, defiant voice to the boy and his mother. I, for one, am glad to have heard them and hope that many others will too.
The Power of Perseverance and Resilience February 5, 2008
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
I was delighted to read Hope's Boy. It reminds me why I'm a social worker. Connections with others, and the need for them, are at our core. They are powerful and enduring, as is the sense of loss when they are broken. In Bridge's case, social workers and the foster care system broke his physical connections to his mother and grandmother. As social workers, our role is to support, honor and do everything we can to sustain the core bond between parent and child. We failed to do that for Bridge. Despite our failures, Bridge held close his memories of Hope, developing his own extraordinary capacity for resilience. He lends a powerful voice to so many foster children who have learned to "be still," who continue to long for their own enduring bond with a forever parent. We can and must do better for them. I try to do that each day, for every youngster and family with whom I work. And I'm trying to teach that to the next generation of social workers, as well, who face a whole new set of challenges to keep children safe while they support and sustain the forever bonds they have with their parents. Thanks again for a wonderful reminder of our responsibility to nurture resilience and hope in all children.
Devastating and Unforgettable February 5, 2008
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
"Some families cannot be saved and their children cannot be return. Yet, even then, their love for each other must be worth something."
-- Andrew Bridge, Hope's Boy
This is a brave memoir about our nation's horribly broken foster care system, that all too often fails our children and families who are in most need and who are most vulnerable. With a steady and elegant voice, Bridge describes a mother who loved him desperately, and in the end, did more than most would ever ask of themselves, all the while savaged by mental illness. With tenderness, he describes how love can exist alongside failure and how a mother can ultimately "love a child more than she can care for him." The story is profoundly inspirational, told without a trace of bitterness - and clearly required tremendous courage to write.
Bridge went on to Wesleyan University, graduated from Harvard Law School, then devoted his life to the children he remembered -- children with broken lives who still wait for something far better than we give them.
An excellent read - an important one, too.
A Young Man's Courage February 26, 2008
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
Andy Bridge's likeable childhood photo peers out from his bookjacket, but his eyes betray his face. Just slightly though. He has been trained to smile for the camera. It's a heartbreaking photograph and it drew me to the rack upon which the book sat. I know that look. Eager to please, yet mindful of the consequence of caring.
Like a scene from a macabre Tennessee Williams play, Andy is ripped from his over-the-edge mother when she has one too many public meltdowns. "Hope's Boy" is whisked away from the scene. And like one of Williams' characters, from now on Andy's survival will depend upon the kindness of strangers.
That's what kids learn when the bottom falls out. Some folks will like you, but most won't.
Kids remember all the stings. And some of the encouragement. You learn to become an actor, to do what you're told, You've been broken young, by people who aren't your parents. It's just easier to go along to get along.
In his probing memoir, Andy Bridges shows us in graphic detail exactly how good an actor he can be. And it is to his credit, as this quality keeps him tied to one family, the Leonards, for most of his remaining childhood.
He learns that Mrs. Leonard, a Nazi survivor, has mood swings and he needs to stay out of her way. He overhears her gossiping with neighbors about his plight and those of the other foster children that pass through the Leonard's household. He sees there's a revolving door. There's no security here. But he promises to do better.
Bridges' writing is candid, honest, self-effacing . . . and ultimately surprising.
The touchstone of the story is young Jason, another foster child. This child's transformation in the household is portrayed in such a heartbreaking fashion that I found myself having to put the book down at times. It is obvious that the boy had a tremendous effect on Andy. His book is a tribute to Jason.
I say the book is ultimately suprising because I didn't see the personal transformation Andy went through coming. I have seen this in other memoirs. The subject doesn't want to seem to be bragging perhaps. (Or could the security of his foster home have had something to do with it?) But all of a sudden this timid, introverted outcast is running for school body president, getting a scholarship to Wesleyan, wait! Now he's a champion debater.
When did all this happen?
Well, I'm glad it did, because Andrew Bridge, great name by the way, has become a "bridge" to other kids who, through no fault of their own, are cast into a bureaucratic system that strips them of their remaining dignity at just the moment they're most vulnerable. He bookends his memoir with an example of how he has put what he learned as an adult into action.
I know a couple of people who were in the foster system in Los Angeles in the '70's. I've heard horror stories of all kinds of abuse. Bridge relates some of the tragedies pertaining to the arrival of another child into the Leonard household. What happens to the little girl in the body cast -- she is brought into the Leonard's home after being raped and attacked with a baseball bat -- is truly horrifying and you begin to wonder about the balance. The mythology surrounding the evil foster mother is second only to that of the wicked stepmother.
Bridge doesn't exactly give the parents of these battered and abandoned children a free ride but he does reserve his greatest scorn for the "system." And for the Leonards.
Although we don't get a very clear picture of the Leonard children, it seems that Andy has drawn away, realizing that he's just a paycheck to these people and they get to tell him what to do. He seems perplexed at the end why he even bothers to visit them anymore at the holidays and then he stops going.
I found myself perplexed that Grandma Kate didn't swoop back in to rescue Andy, or that she even allowed him to slip from her grasp in the first place. He mentions this in passing later in the book and blames it on the cycle of poverty. He also notes that his mother herself spent some time in foster care when she was young.
The tragedy of course is that it wasn't his mother's fault. They love each other. Bridge lays out why they had to be separated. He's very clear. He tries to cover as much as he can, praying she won't be taken away from him, even as her condition worsens.
I wish Andrew Bridge all the best in life. And he has my gratitude for being such an articulate spokesman for the cause of child welfare.
Disturbing and heartwrenching March 15, 2008
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This book held my interest to the very last page, but only when I read the epilogue did I shed a few tears of rage.
All the loneliness, the cruelty and chronic absence of nurturing and support in Andrew Bridge's life did not fill me with despair as much as the description of his fight as an adult, and an accomplished lawyer, to fight back against the very system that held him in bondage for his entire adolescence.
As a former court appointed special advocate in Colorado (CASA), and now a legal assistant for a Guardian ad litem specializing in family and juvenile law, I see on a daily basis how crippled and inadequate are our bureacracies in regard to foster care and all the children held in its limbo.
The courts are crowded, there aren't enough good homes, and the cases just keep coming...
I know from firsthand experience that children long for their parents, even when neglect feels like the norm and things at home are substandard.The system too often removes the kids, lets them languish too long in foster placements, and fails to provide appropriate support to the parents. ( An eight week class for meth addiction, or a six week workshop to end a life's cycle of domestic violence, etc.) We put band-aids on these families and heal very few of them. Emancipation at 18 is a frightening step for kids who have never had what the average child needs and has provided for him until the age of 26. Andrew Bridge was a victim of our inadequate system, but survived to become a voice to reckon with. His is a story that should not have happened, but the world is better for his courage and honesty in writing this book.
I will allow Andrew Bridge's words to inform my approach to working with the foster kids in Colorado.I also know now that to mention an absent parent's love and struggles should not be a taboo.It might be the very thing that is missing, regardless of the outcome for a family. Thank you, Andrew Bridge.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
