A riveting chronicle of stunning achievement against the odds.
Just days from his 13th birthday, Daniel Trush suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage; this is the story of his miraculous recovery, recounted by Preisler (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Skin Deep, 2010, etc.) and the Trush family.
Three weeks after emergency surgery, Danny was still in a medically induced coma and dependent upon life support. At first, the odds that the boy would survive were slim. Though doctors performed surgery to deal with the multiple, previously undiscovered aneurysms, the brain damage was extensive. Danny’s father, Ken, spent every night at his son's bedside, singing along as a boom box played their favorite songs, but the boy's neural activity had virtually flat-lined. Doctors urged the family to pull the plug, but they refused, and their faith that he would recover was rewarded. On Easter Sunday, Ken was sitting on the end of his son's bed to make room for visitors. Suddenly, he felt a toe poke him. Turning to look at his son, he saw a faint smile on his face. During the next several days, there were more indications that Danny was becoming conscious and trying to communicate, but at first, doctors remained skeptical. The authors chronicle the process of Danny's yearlong rehabilitation in the hospital. Singing was part of the process. Despite problems with short-term memory and a paralyzed arm, Danny studied music theory and piano. He also completed the New York City marathon at a walking pace. Eventually, he and his family started a nonprofit music foundation to provide free music education for the disabled. In 2011, he led students in a Broadway performance sponsored by the New York Yankees. Later, they sang the National Anthem at Yankee Stadium before the game.
A riveting chronicle of stunning achievement against the odds.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62087-694-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
