Appealing and informative.
An elucidation of the human child’s organs, the how and why of illnesses that strike them, and such related issues as circumcision, vaccination, abortion, learning disabilities, and child abuse—all enriched by the author’s personal memories.
Sanghavi (Pediatric Cardiologist/Children’s Hospital, Boston) organizes his text around organs, devoting a chapter each to the lungs, heart, blood, bones, brain, skin, gonads, and finally the guts. He uses stories of his young patients and their concerned parents to explain a great deal about anatomy, medicine, procedures, and problems. In the section on lungs, for example, the birth of a premature baby reveals how the lungs develop, the case of an asthmatic girl raises public health issues, and children with cystic fibrosis demonstrate the failed promise of gene therapy. The chapter on bones, which discusses medical identification of child battery, focuses on the case of Matthew Eappen, whose death resulted in the well-publicized 1997 trial and conviction of an English au pair (later released by the judge). Sanghavi’s patients come to him with conditions as common as chicken pox or diabetes and as rare as ambiguous sexuality, a brain tumor, or a malformed heart. They include children from such diverse backgrounds as a Boston slum, a Tokyo suburb, and a Navajo reservation. Into his insightful narratives of these youngsters, he weaves touching memories of his parents, especially his ailing father, and family stories of life in India. Poignantly, the chapter on skin, which opens in a neonatal care unit where a new father is warming his tiny infant son by holding him against his own bare chest, closes with the author throwing handfuls of his father’s ashes into a river and feeling fine particles of the dust blow back onto the skin of his own face and hands. Sanghavi describes this work as part of his “quest to learn humanity,” a goal he has heartwarmingly achieved.
Appealing and informative.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-6724-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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