- Paperback: 232 pages
- Publisher: Exile (Jan 13 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1550961489
- ISBN-13: 978-1550961485
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.7 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #320,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“Fluid and masterful [with] wonderful little insights throughout... a keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. There is knowledge here, knowledge of those important, life-defining moments. Overall, a work with a brilliant sense of story.” (JOANNE SOPER-COOK, judge, David Richards Adams Prize )
“Oh, it’s lovely. I like it when my body responds to writing; right now there’s an ache in my throat.” (EarLit Shorts )
“Oh, it’s lovely. I like it when my body responds to writing; right now there’s an ache in my throat.” (EarLit Shorts )
Book Description
Emotional and tightly written, with a resistance to the happy ending, and the idea there is often something or someone waiting for the small mistake.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read!,
This review is from: The Meaning Of Children (Paperback)
I loved this book. the stories are touching without being overly maudlin. It's a true literary feat while remaining a fairly light, pleasurable read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly Enjoyable,
By
This review is from: The Meaning Of Children (Paperback)
I enjoyed The Meaning of Children so much that I wished there were twice as many stories! If I had to pick one, Pour Un Instant was my favourite. I was sad to come to the end of the book.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Published Reviews, The Montreal Gazette, The Globe & Mail,
By Beverly Akerman (Montreal Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Meaning Of Children (Paperback)
Stories Marvel at Parents' CommitmentREVIEWED BY ANNE CHUDOBIAK From The Montreal Gazette, February 11th, 2011 N.D.G.-er Beverly Akerman's debut story collection, The Meaning of Children, begins with a quote from Dostoyevsky: 'The soul is healed by being with children.' I read it over March break, which I had envisioned as an idyllic week at home with the kids, free from the demands of work and school, but which came with challenges of its own: whining, fighting and an apartment that refused to stay clean for any appreciable amount of time. In this context, The Meaning of Children took on the tone of motivational reading, each story a reminder of what an optimistic endeavour it is to parent... The book touches on a lot of the biggest parental 'what ifs.' Kidnapping. Hate crime. Death by drowning. Suicide. Even so, it would make a good gift for a new mother. Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others. Says one character, looking back, 'Life had been perfect ' but I'd been too busy to notice. Read more: [...] ------- How children can save--or take--your life REVIEWED BY KATIE HEWITT From The Globe and Mail, February 9th, 2011 [...] ...Akerman follows children through the stages of adolescence, childbearing and the empty nest, occupying different decades, genders and narrative voices throughout 14 short stories. Disparate parts come together with recurring themes of sex, death, guilt and social prejudice. This isn't the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment. ...in The Mysteries, Akerman perfectly captures the anxiety of second-grader Rebecca after the birth of her little brother. Left to walk to school alone by her beleaguered mother, Rebecca meets a strange man who talks of hot chocolate and puppies. Her inner monologue runs wild wondering if the 'don't talk to strangers' rule applies when the stranger talks first. ('Why don't they tell you what to do about moments like this when they tell you so much other stuff?') Rebecca's innocence, her perception of the horror laced in her teacher's silences, and ultimately her fear and a slight exaggeration of events to the police leave the reader almost as confused as Rebecca about the man's intentions, all because Akerman writes as a believable eight-year-old. Perhaps most compelling is Like Jeremy Irons. A mother 'colonized' can only acknowledge her abortion in the third person, and painstakingly describes the procedure. The story defies the reader not to have a visceral reaction to her pain, her oscillation between a mother's guilt and a feminist's fierce resolve, and the sound of vacuum suction that's 'found something to hold onto, some meaning..."
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