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One Small Boat: The Story of a Little Girl, Lost Then Found |  | Author: Kathy Harrison
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $7.25
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Seller: brianswedehansen
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 416127
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 158542465X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.733092
EAN: 9781585424658
ASIN: 158542465X
Publication Date: April 6, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This story of one little girl's journey through our foster-care system forms an intimate portrait of foster care in America and the children whose lives are forever shaped by it.
Augusten Burroughs called Kathy Harrison's memoir Another Place at the Table a "riveting and profoundly moving story of a hero, disguised as an everyday woman." In One Small Boat, Harrison tells the story of one little girl who arrived on her doorstep, and describes how caring for this child was an experience that challenged everything she thought she knew about foster-care parenting and the needs of the children she shelters.
Daisy was five when she arrived in Harrison's bustling home. Mother of three children by birth and three by adoption, and with a handful of foster kids always coming and going, Harrison had ten children under her roof at any given time. But Daisy was in many ways unique. Daisy's birth mother wasn't poor, uneducated, or drug addicted. She simply couldn't bring herself to take care of her little girl, and the effects on the child were heartrending. Daisy was unwilling to eat-even frightened of it-and seemed to have a severe speech impediment. After two weeks in Kathy's loving home, however, Daisy began to thrive. What had happened to her? And how can a foster-care parent give back all that has been taken from a child like Daisy-knowing that she might leave one day very soon? Harrison had seen many children pass through her doors, but this one touched her in a way she didn't immediately understand.
One Small Boat will be of deep interest to anyone who has nurtured and cared for a child or anyone interested in the intricate web that is our social welfare system.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
Excellent book that is true to life! July 16, 2006
A. Smith (Maine)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I couldn't put this book down and read it in one day. I have also read Kathy Harrison's other book "Another Place at the Table" which is also a great book. I feel that this book is very true to life from what I have experienced dealing with the foster care system. Kathy gives faces and names to the injustices that often occur to children in this system. She also talks very realistically about the horrible trauma and abuse suffered by children before they enter the child welfare system. This would be a good read for any prospective foster or adoptive parent to give them an idea of the sorts of things they may have to deal with. My husband and I have adopted one son from foster care and it has been the best and hardest thing we have done. Some times I wish I did not know about what happens and has happened to children in foster care because that would be easier. On the other hand I know that I have been put on this earth to advocate for certain children that have crossed my path and I would change nothing. I think that Kathy Harrison must feel the same way and I admire her greatly.
Daily nitty-gritty April 23, 2007
Anatidae Ling (Pittsburgh, PA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read this book because I had loved her previous book, Another Place at the Table. Both are her true memoirs of being a foster mother. She's really loving and kind and also down-to-earth and real and funny.
These are the stories of kids who ended up in foster care because they had been abused, so it's not always a light-hearted subject matter. But the books are far from sad. They're really hopeful and inspiring. It's so wonderful to see how a mother's love (in this case, a foster-mother's love) can make such a difference to a child. They're not sappy, though. She stays away from sap. A lot of it is about the daily nitty-gritty of parenting -- getting supper on the table even though the high-needs toddler is clinging and the older kid needs to go to the doctor, etc. etc. Highly recommended.
Very moving - couldn't put it down! May 29, 2006
E. MacDonald (Wakefield, MA USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is an amazing story. I couldn't put it down becuase I became so interested in the fate of the characters. How blessed they are to have been able to be part of the author's home in the midst of their turbulent lives - even if for a short time. But the author reiterates that it is SHE who has been blessed by their presence. Very poignant, highly, highly recommended.
Honest and from the heart June 5, 2008
D. Engels (St. Paul, MN)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was a very perceptive and honest protrayl of the challenges and heart warming experiences a foster mom faces with each placement. As a foster mother, I identified and empathized with her stories and situations of individual cases. She speaks from her heart. I would recommend this book to anyone who does foster care or who is interested in doing it, or who just wants a peak inside what it is like for us and the foster children we love and care for.
A Wonderful, Inspiring Book September 8, 2008
Catalicious (Ardsley-on-hudson, NY United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I found this book because of an interview in The New York Times of the author, Kathy Harrison, and another book she had written on Preparedness. While the book on Preparedness was a very useful, enlightening book, it was this one, One Small Boat, that has me hooked on her as an author.
Her true accounts (another book I will read, One More Place at the Table) of what it is like to be a foster parent are inspiring. The traumas that are inflicted on some of these children are chilling, but this book provided a glimpse into what a patient loving foster parent can do to help them. It also can show what they can not do, no matter how much care they give. There is a frightening story of two children in her care who will need far more care than any foster parent can give. Ms. Harrison had to make the decision to send one away because of the havoc she was causing.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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