Hayden has written about some truly horrific abuse situations, but this book is by far the most disturbing. Hayden moves to a tiny town in the midwest during the middle of the school year to take on a 4 student special ed. class. While all of the children present a challenge, Jadie is the biggest mystery. Initially, she will talk to nobody. When Jadie begins talking to Hayden, Hayden soon realizes that something is seriously wrong with Jadie, even though her home life at first glance seems fine. Hayden comes to suspect that Jadie is a victim of some type of ritual abuse. However, she has no proof, and nobody in the small town can believe such an accusation could be true in their town. This was a hard book to read. I think the worst part was that even though Hayden and other “officials” knew something horrible was happening to Jadie, and were supposed to be able to protect Jadie, they were helpless to do so without any hard evidence.

Hayden is now working as a research psychologist, specializing in elective mutism. She is asked to work with a boy named Kevin, nicknamed “Zoo-Boy.” Kevin doesn’t speak, creates cages under tables to hide in, and fears water so much that he refuses to bathe. When Hayden helps Kevin overcome his fear of speaking, she begins to unravel his terrible history of abuse and violence. While revealing more and more about his past, Kevin’s anger towards his abusers spirals out of control.

This was a hard book to read. The abuse that Kevin suffered was shocking, and the difficulties that Hayden went through to help Kevin were also disturbing. The events in this book took place during the same time period as those in The Tiger’s Child. It is mind-boggling to me how Hayden is able to invest herself so deeply into one child’s life, let alone more than one at the same time.

Another school year in the teaching career of Torey Hayden. This time, Hayden’s biggest challenge is a silent girl named Venus. Venus is a 6 year old girl, who refuses to speak, or even move or participate in any way. When provoked, Venus flies into a horrible rage. Torey also has 4 other severely disturbed children in her class full-time, in addition to numerous students who drop in for resource help.

While the book focuses on Venus and her struggles, Hayden also discusses her difficulties in working with her teacher’s aide, and in creating a sense of class unity amongst a class of kids who don’t want to be at school. Once again, I come away from this book inspired by Hayden’s dedication to her job.

This is the sequel to One Child. While working on the manuscript for One Child, Hayden decided that she needed to show it to Sheila before it was published. It took some time, but she managed to track Sheila down. Sheila was now a teenager, who had completely forgotten almost everything about the time that she had spent in Hayden’s class. Hayden and Sheila renew their relationship, and Sheila begins to remember her past.

This book wasn’t as satisfying to read as some of Hayden’s other books. I think it’s because you see that even thought Hayden pours herself into helping her students, she really can’t fix everything. While her other books are realistic, they generally do end on an upbeat note. As a reader, you imagine that now that Hayden has had a breakthrough with a child, the child will go on improving and eventually lead a normal, happy life. Of course, although we like to believe this, it’s not always true.

Although this book is part of the “cheesy inspirational fiction” genre, it really wasn’t too bad. How’s that for a recommendation? Rachel and Vic have been married for several years when Rachel decides she’s ready to have a baby. When she has difficulty becoming pregnant, she and Vic disagree on what to do, and this leads to some difficulties in their marriage. The initial plot seems fairly straight forward and predictable, but the last half of the book takes an interesting turn that I wasn’t expecting.

I have only two big complaints about this book. The first one is my standard complaint of this type of book — the romance between the two main characters is quite unrealistic and nauseating. The second one is my standard complaint for almost any novel that has a character who is a teacher. The main character, Rachel, is a teacher. However, this seems to just be a convenient way for the author to illustrate how much Rachel loves children, rather than a realistic portrayal of a teacher. No wonder the general public thinks teaching is easy, if they get their information from books like these! In spite of my complaints, I probably will read the sequel. . .

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