The meaning of children

Following is a list of excerpts & links to published reviews of The Meaning Of Children:

 

From The Globe & Mail:

 

<h2 id="articletitle" class="regserif entry-title">How children can save – or take – your life</h2> <h4 class="heavyseriflbl sm byline author vcard">REVIEWED BY KATIE HEWITT</h4>

...

Akerman follows children through the stages of adolescence, childbearing and the empty nest, occupying different decades, genders and narrative voices throughout 14 short stories. Disparate parts come together with recurring themes of sex, death, guilt and social prejudice.

 

<div class="fpmedia"> <div class="sans sm">The Meaning of Children: Stories, by Beverly Akerman, Exile Editions, 226 pages, $19.95</div> </div>

This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment.

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/the-meaning-of-children-by-beverly-akerman/article1899277/

 

From The Montreal Gazette:

 

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<h1>Stories marvel at parents' commitment</h1>

 

By Anne Chudobiak, Special to The Gazette March 11, 2011

 

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N.D.G.-er Beverly Akerman’s debut story collection, The Meaning of Children, begins with a quote from Dostoyevsky: “The soul is healed by being with children.” I read it over March break, which I had envisioned as an idyllic week at home with the kids, free from the demands of work and school, but which came with challenges of its own: whining, fighting and an apartment that refused to stay clean for any appreciable amount of time. In this context, The Meaning of Children took on the tone of motivational reading, each story a reminder of what an optimistic endeavour it is to parent...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]-->

The book touches on a lot of the biggest parental “what ifs.” Kidnapping. Hate crime. Death by drowning. Suicide...Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others. Says one character, looking back, “Life had been perfect … but I’d been too busy to notice."

 

From The Rover:

 

<h1 class="entry-title">Suffer the Children</h1>

 

by <a class="url fn" rel="nofollow" href="http://roverarts.com/author/francine-diot-layton/">Francine Diot-Layton</a>

The Meaning of Children, by Beverly Akerman, Exile Books

 

...The story lines are clean, with simple structures and plots. The richness of the pieces comes from Beverley’s style and her fertile imagination, which creates vivid descriptions — “Together they made a shape like a deformed heart, broken at the bottom and lopsided…” — to describe fighting parents. Elsewhere, expansive imagery pulls the reader in: “Orthodox Jews, they always travelled in packs. In fact, if you stood before their dwelling places and narrowed your eyes just the right way, you could almost make out the flapping tents and, nearby, the camels, squinting into the sun, waiting patiently to be formed once again into caravans and make their rock ‘n’ roll way across the ancient, almost-unremembered world.” Notice the impeccable use of the second person. I caught myself squinting...Intelligent, objective, open-minded but not clinical, her prose is refreshing and unprejudiced. Her characters are frank and genuine.

...Beverly paints a canvas full of life, and its close associate, death, and all contemporary trappings in between...With The Meaning of Children, we get a beautifully written exposé on the meaning of life.

 

 

<div id="articlemeta"> <h5 class="articledateline sans sm"></h5> <div class="articlecopy s6of12 fl entry-content"><a href="http://ad.ca.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3b42/3/0/%2a/m%3B233085753%3B0-0%3B0%3B55569576%3B62-120/240%3B39612803/39630590/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/6e/0%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.globecampus.ca" target="_blank"></a> <div class="fpmedia"> <div class="sans sm">The Meaning of Children: Stories, by Beverly Akerman, Exile Editions, 226 pages, $19.95</div> </div> </div> </div>

<abbr class="byline_date" title="2011-07-11" />