No Matter What Padded Board Book (Send a Story)

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If you've ever wondered what it's like to adopt, this book holds the answer: it's hard, sometimes traumatic, and far from "normal family life". It's also special, joyful, and utterly transformative - for parents as much as children. Yes our families are different; this book explains in both a moving and matter-of-fact way why we are proud to be so. Sigh. I didn't see this as a grief/death thing at all, instead I interpreted it as a "someone's moved away" scenario. I guess you could be very liberal with your interpretation and see this as dealing with grief/death, but it's not explicit enough for me and this does NOT count as a "help your child cope with grief" book for me at all. For a long while I have said to myself, "one more source, just one more idea". The piled philosophy books, no end in sight to the beginnings of a new research path, just the fruitless attempt to perpetually capture the concepts of nature into little "word jars", as if they were fireflies.

I implemented her three main points of advice immediately and for what it's worth, in the two weeks I've done that, it has really helped me to work more on a paper I would otherwise never have started already. Everyone should read this funny and deeply moving account of modern adoption: the highs, the lows, the risks and the rewards. Sally's writing is honest, insightful and beautiful to read. I'm not an academic and I don't remember how I heard about this book, but as someone who's always trying to write but rarely seems to find the time and energy, I figured anyone who could help academics (who are clearly always stretched thin and crazy busy) could help me. A lot of authors use their own stories as a means of example and this one is no different. Ms. Nichols has gone through her share of difficulties and bad experiences on the road to becoming who she is today. What stood out for me is that she grew up in southern Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central) and her difficulties and bad experiences are similar to ones that I and people I have known have also gone through.Sir Martin Narey, Government Advisor on Children's Social Care and Visiting Professor, Durham and Sheffield Hallam Universities The author did make a good point of creating a "reverse day planner" wherein you log what you are doing for every hour of the day after you do it, which allows you to better assess retroactively how efficiently you're using your time. I like the idea of this, but personally I find it quite hard to strictly schedule my time, because I prefer to go on outdoor runs, which are highly contingent on weather and my general level of busyness. That, plus other contingent/difficult to plan issues (how long will cooking take? will it just be reheating leftovers or making something brand new? what about going to the store?). When I try to plan I inevitably find too many floating items for it to really be helpful, so I just eventually give up and only schedule out the big things that don't change... which doesn't help me. Large and Small are completely genderless. This makes the story fit with any kind of parent/child or grandparent/child or relative/child or grown-up/child pairing you might have upon reading it. In the most modest, refreshing and unassuming way, Sally gives a voice to everyone struggling with infertility or learning to parent traumatised children. This book is a triumph in so many ways.

Picture books that are reassuring can help soothe a child, help them know that they are loved–or should be loved. I think they can have great benefit. No Matter What by Debi Gliori is one of those books.

LoveReading4Kids Says

Honest, refreshing, heart-breaking, thought-provoking and inspiring - this is a valuable insight into adoption and the devastating effects of trauma. Lastly I want to talk about two ideas in Part 4, the section devoted to maintaining writing momentum, which I found quite interesting. The first is what Jensen calls "follow the lilt", where the lilt is a cheerful or lively voice when one is describing something interesting, enjoyable or highly engaging. By identifying the lilt in speech, you are able to spot potential future projects for yourself and in others. Follow the lilt. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in personal growth and experiencing more wellbeing. As I was reading, I kept thinking of people I would love to gift a copy to. However, I do still have mixed feelings about this book. Some minor things I did not like were the repetition as well as the last few chapters going into her own Great Projects to help others write more. And also the way she portrayed fiction writers - there were some remarks when quoting writing advice by Stephen King for example, where she suggested academics have a harder time writing because they also do other things and are not full-time writers. That I thought was a low blow: most fiction writers are not Stephen King, aka. most fiction writers are also juggling a thousand things in their life while writing. I love how positive psychology expert Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar explains his reasoning for the title of this book. He claims that there is no such thing as happily ever after, but that we can continuously learn how to become happier, no matter what. His approach involves self-reflection and experimentation to improve our wellbeing in five areas: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional. He refers to this approach as Climbing the SPIRE, which I think is a very helpful mnemonic.