Sudden-Infant-Death-Syndrome-SIDS Books

I have been acquainted with Brian for several years now and also have met many of the characters in the book. In fact I have visited the scene of this incredible story. What God has done there will melt most anyone. God's work is stunningly beautiful and He has blessed Brian with a rare experience coupled with a storytelling gift. Not only will you be drawn into the story, you will - without hardly knowing it - come away trained in basic church planting principles. I recommend this book to anyone called to the mission field and to anyone called to support and care for missionaries.

Hey Brian,

I just finished your book!! Loved it!! It was so touching and heartfelt. Most of the Perspectives teachers books were great but they were more about information and following God's call for missions, which is great and very important. But your book was just a brilliant testimony of you and your families journey as an apostle, both the joys and the deep hurts. And I about lost it when I read the last part where the guy tracked you down in California and revealed God's plan for Jed's death, i was in a coffee shop full of folks and it took all my will power not to weep. God truly is amazing. I liked the way you got the idea for the title, even in the capital you still had to butcher your own meat, that rocks. I know I am biased on this book cause I want to work in Mongolia too. But is was a great read man. I don't know if you remember my conversation in Fort Smith but I know I want to work among the nomads and ride forever along the open steppe. So keep me in your prayers.

Peace, love, and harmony
Eric

And may Papa bless you and your family!!!

For some of us who wonder where God is working in the world today, this is a great read. I did frontier missions training under Brian and Louise Hogan and had heard their story before, but got so many new insights and better understanding by reading the book. It is well written, exciting, and a great way to "story" your way through George Patterson's church planting principles. It's interesting to read what happens on virgin soil when a great farmer comes in and plants good seed, then nurtures it and as a strong plant, it starts to reproduce the good seed that was originally planted. Very exciting and heart rending, the book gives a good idea of the obstacles that church planters are facing in the 10/40 window.

This is an eye witness account of how God works among people all over the world to grow His Church! Besides being extremely readable, full of engaging stories and observations of life in a Mongolian community, this book contains illustrations of key principles of pioneer or frontier missions. For example: how to lead from the middle, how to grow indigenous leadership, how to find and use local metaphors.
If you are a Christian, you'll be encouraged and challenged. If you are not a Christian, you'll see inside a Christian's heart to see what makes a missionary tick.

I happen to live near Brian and Louise and they are the real deal. No fluff or artifice here. You will LOVE this story.

This by far, was an amazing SIDS book. It's been almost a year since we lost Jacob to SIDS, and I still go back and re-read the book. It's so hard to find people that could relate to your SIDS loss, and this book is full of them. I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this book.

I've been through this loss. Chances are, if you're searching for this book, you have just experienced your own loss. READ this book.

If you have lost a child to sids then you must get this. It was recommended to me and it has been a valuable tool. It is fully of case studies, answers to questions you wont have thought of and usefull information on how to try and get through this.

Horchler and Rice give comfort, encouragement, and insight to the issues that surround Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Infant Death. Families who have suffered the devastating loss of a baby will find many questions they may have answered among the pages. The topics covered bring a sense of normalcy and healing to the bereaved as the authors guide the reader down the path of surviving their loss and again finding joy in living.

The SIDS Survival Guide was my beacon of light during the darkest part of my life. My son, Dominic, passed away from SIDS on April 10, 2001, at only 4 1/2 months young. I began to reach out and search for all the information I could find on SIDS, drinking it all in by the bucket. A few months after he died, I found "The SIDS Survival Guide", and am so incredibly thankful. There was so much information, so many stories so like my own. I shed many tears while reading it for the first time, and even now, when I go back to read sections, I still cry. I am now expecting our second child in June 2002, and am scared to death. But knowing that I am informed about SIDS is somewhat of a comfort to me; in a way, I am as prepared as I can ever be. I would recommend this book to anyone expecting a child, who has a young baby, or knows someone who is or does.

My husband and I lost our son to SIDS in September of 2000. Our souls have been torn. The grieving process over his death has been draining. I recall little over the past 4+ months since his death. The one thing I do recall is thinking I was going crazy. I had wished their was another SIDS survivor I could speak with. Someone who could possibly relate to what my husband and I were going through. Someone who could understand our emotions. I searched under the keyword SIDS and found this book. I have not read the book in its entirety. I have read the sections I have needed at the particular times in my grieving. This book has helped me confirm that I am not going crazy. What I am feeling, though very personal, is normal. I feel this book is a neccesity for any parent who has to suffer this terrible tragedy. I have placed an order of these books in my babies memory to send to my state SIDS Coordinator in hopes that other parents may find comfort in its contents. Thank you Joani and Robin.

Jewel Sample creatively offers parents and adults a unique and thoughtful approach to help children who are coping with unexpected tragedy. In her book, Flying Hugs and Kisses, Sample introduces readers to Baby Will, the newest member of the family. Will's older siblings remind us that children can embrace the concept of boundless love when Sally starts the "I Love You This Much" game and says, "We love Baby Will all the way to heaven and back," as she jumps up and down during playtime. Baby Will receives a lot of love and attention. His family could be like many other families. What is important about this story is that Baby Will's life ends unexpectedly due to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). The realism of events portrayed by Sample may be very similar to what other families experience with the unexpected death of a child, parent, sibling, or other family member. Mom's factual explanation in the hospital to the other children is straightforward about death - "When someone's body does not work it means they have died. This is what happened to Baby Will. It also means that Baby Will can not open his eyes, cry, smile, and drink his bottle or wet his diaper anymore." The story may be helpful to parents and children during a difficult time, because in their grief, we see a family take a unique, active approach that helps the entire family cope with their loss. Flying Hugs and Kisses introduces the concept of spirituality and heaven and combines it with "I Love You This Much" to offer other families possible ideas when coping with an unexpected death.

John Adams
Author of The Dragonfly Door

There are not many books out there to help children deal with grief. Jewel offers hope and encouragement in this book. A great tool for families or churches to have on hand.

Flying Hugs and Kisses is a touching book written to help children understand more about SIDS. It offers a wonderfully creative way of coping for family members who are affected by SIDS. Jewel Sample does a very good job of assisting parents (or other family members) in explaining things at a child's level. I would have to imagine that there are many families that have been affected by SIDS sending the "flying hugs and kisses" described in the story to their lost loved ones after reading this book. Well done.

Flying Hugs & Kisses is a special, unique book to help children understand
the loss of a baby. Wonderfully comforting. Highly recommended.

A great resource for families with children who have lost a baby to SIDS. I highly recommend it.

In Millie Spark's book, "Down To Earth Angels", Dr. Harold E. Leestma in the "Foreward" sets the tone for the content of her book and message for the reader. Followed by her own "Introduction" the reader will be unable to lay the book aside because of the wonderful and emotional "true to life stories" contained througout the 13 Chapeters. The "tone" of her manuscript rings "Real & True" and her book is a remarkable effort to connect people to "Real Down To Earth Angels".

This is not your typical self-help book of how to pick up the pieces after a loss in your life; rather, what God can teach us while walking us through the grieving process. The author opens up herself, her experiences to help others have hope.

This book took me about a month to finish . . . I simply wasn't motivated to get to the end of the story, most likely because of the structure. The plot is predictable by design, and I found it very sad--neither uplifting nor particularly moving. The writing starts out strong, with great use of mood and description, but soon lapses into the annoying habit of relying on italicized internal dialog for the main character. She is a young woman named Kathy, who escapes her sad life in Louisiana, boards a bus for the unknown, and winds up in southern California. A second character, Lacey, (Kathy's co-worker at a construction company) has an occasional chapter, where she primarily obsesses over finding out more about Kathy, but this is very much Kathy's story and Lacey is tragically short-changed.

Kathy goes back in time from her arrival on "Pacific Avenue" in SoCal, to the years just prior and her complicated, young-adult life, her bi-racial relationship with a troubled Viet Nam vet named Richard, their child, Jamie, and her racist parents--particularly her hateful mother--and her relationship/s with a group known as the "Motleys," who put on puppet shows for a living. Skimming over anything to do with the puppets and the shows, I kept looking to the pages that moved the story forward and played out the details as to why she felt the need to escape.

Ultimately, one feels great sympathy for Kathy. She's innocent and likeable; however, that internal italicized dialog kept getting in the way. On each page I wanted to tell her to SPEAK UP! Unfortunately, this writing technique ruined (for me) an otherwise compelling tale of love and loss.

This is a novel that combines elements of hope and happiness with tragedy and triumph, and ends up with that compromise known as reality.

Kathy, escaping a past that has brought her pain, meets Lacey while searching for a job. Lacey, needing to learn that the pattern of mothering changes as children reach adulthood, becomes concerned for Kathy and seeks to find out more about her past. By moving between past and present and sharing the narrative between Kathy and Lacey, we piece together Kathy's life and Lacey's challenge. The shifting points of view are handled deftly.

Ms Watson has taken some relatively common real life ingredients and combined them in a way that provides readers with a magnificent story. The writing is superb, the main characters are three dimensional, and very human. There is much to enjoy in this novel. Ms Watson has packed a world into less than 320 pages.

I am looking forward to reading other novels by Ms Watson.

Highly recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I found this book to be captivating. Pacific Avenue is so raw in its emotions, it was as if the author was writing her own story. I had to keep reminding myself this was a piece of fiction. It is not a predictable story in any way. Each new page captures you and leads you to the next.

This book has some scarred figures and will take you on an emotional ride. Richard, the young African American college student, just back from Viet Nam. He is estranged from his family, and his nights are filled with the horrors he experienced during the war while he sleeps. Even during the day he is haunted.

Kathy is a young white college student whom her mother never liked. Kathy could never measure up to her mother's standards. She was taught that it did not matter what the color of a person's skin was. She begins a relationship with Richard and invites him to dinner at her parent's house. Her mother did not seem pleased, but her father accepted him. To her mother racism becomes prevalent.

They continue to date and eventually become lovers. Kathy invites Richard to share in her family's Thanksgiving dinner. Everything is going fine until Richard hears a loud crash from the window shutters. He automatically dives under the dinner table, the food that was there falls to the floor as well as plates. Her mother is appalled by his behavior. While Richard is cleaning the food off of his clothes, it is her sister's finace Sam that comes to Richard's defense. He tries to make family members understand why Richard acted as he did.

This book shows us the dynamics of a generation that is just beginning to step out of the mold that has plaqued both blacks and whites in this nation. This is a story of love that two people share. One black and one white.

Kathy and Richard quit school, and leave Baton Rouge for New Orleans. They are hoping that there they will be accepted as a couple. For a short period life was great. They had the freedom they had sought. They made new friends and found jobs. Life was hard but they were making it together. It was also the beginning of Richard's descent. It becomes hard for him to tell reality from his days in Viet Nam. Eventually, they part, but not for the reasons anyone reading this may think. It is where they find true tragedy.

Kathy jumps on the first bus leaving. She is running away from her past and the events that have destroyed her world. She arrives in San Pedro, California not knowing what she will do. She is a young woman who is mourning her loss. Her pain will not go away, and she does not know how to pick up the pieces and begin a new life. How she does it is her story, the story of Pacific Avenue.

The author has sought to entertain you and to keep your attention focused on this story. She has done so until the last word on the last page.

Five stars Anne; as this book is an excellent read for all.

While the book briefly starts in a rather dry and flat manner ... it quickly lights up into a dynamic and vivid story which will capture most readers interest and hold it to the very end. Most readers will be caught up in the dramatic interracial love affair between Kathy Woodridge, the daughter of a Northwestern University professor and Richard Johnson, the son of a non-commissioned black career Army officer. They met in September 1972 in Baton Rouge Louisiana in a psychology class. Their meeting was a most symbolic and symbiotic experience. Kathy eventually introduced Richard to her family where he received a mixed reception of acceptance. When there was a loud crash from some shutters - Richard dove for cover under the dining room table, breaking porcelain dishes and over turning whatever food had been placed on the table. Only Sam, Kathy's sister's fiance totally understood what happened and asked the telling question, "Nam?" To which Richard replied, "Yes" as he walked off in embarrassment to wash off cranberry sauce and other food stuck to his good suit.

With this inauspicious beginning, the couple continued dating and engaged in a physical love affair that led to Kathy's pregnancy, outside of marriage. She looked forward to having his child but had serious reservations about her relationship with Richard after he suggested she could have an abortion, that he would understand ... While her father accepted Richard, her mother was obviously tight-lipped and disapproving. Richard had long ago cut off relations with his family. Essentially he felt his father disowned him when he joined the Army and was sent to Viet Nam. He did not do what his father had urged, finish college and become a commissioned officer. His stint in Viet Nam left invisible emotional scars - which usually surfaced at night. He sufferred from post traumatic stress syndrome but would not seek help. He and Kathy put their college plans on hold to have their baby. They moved to the French Quarter of New Orleans where, as an interracial couple, they would be more accepted by society.

The plot and story line are very engaging with believable and well fleshed out characters who have complex family dynamics. They live in the turbulent times of the early and mid 1970s, during the post Civil Rights and post hippie movements. The unsettled turmoil of the Viet Nam War continues to haunt the landscape in which everyone lives. The author adds a new dimension of excitement: the city of New Orleans and its social milieu, along with some very eccentric and totally captivating personalities. First, Kathy found a job working for Eddie Graziano, who ran a produce stand in the French Quarter where he sold fresh vegetables shipped in from his brother's farm in Mississippi, along with wholesale produce. Later, Richard and Kathy moved to Gretna, a town not far from New Orleans where the rent was cheaper. They found most unusual jobs ... as puppeteers working for a couple who became their good friends. Martin was an Australian born journalist who was injured during the Tet Offensive and wheel chair bound. His injury occured while he was a journalist in Viet Nam. It is where he met his Vietnamese wife, Thu. They are the parents of twin boys. Kathy and Richard rented a small house with a backyard from Francine Boudreaux, a person of Creole and Spanish mixture. Eventually, this unusual mix of people became fast friends, and grew fond of each other, sharing meals and getting together socially ... They called themselves "the Motley family".

However, an awful event occured ... a death which left them all stunned. It caused Kathy to flee to San Pedro, California via Greyhound Bus, to start a new life, at the ripe young age of twenty. She was dropped off at the end of the line - on Pacific Avenue, a rather run down neighborhood. She found a place to rent and an average job as secretarial assistant in the Giannini Construction Firm. Lacey was the executive secretary who took an interest in Kathy, the waif-like orphan who seemed to turn up out of nowhere with no family. She quietly and efficiently did her work she seemed very sad ... Lacey protected her young assistant but also engaged in detective work behind the scenes to piece together Kathy's story. The story Kathy herself would not share or talk about.

In the end, Kathy makes peace with the emotionally devastating events which rocked her world - from which she sought escape. This story has a gut-wrenching surprise event which blew Kathy's world apart. It is a rich and powerful story told in a suspense-filled manner. Clues are dropped but there is no way any reader can predict or anticipate the powerful blow which altered Kathy's world forever but with which she eventually made peace. This is a most highly recommended novel. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

I was extremely surprised by the quality of the writing of Anne L. Watson. She delivered the complete package, a well-crafted plot, with proficiently developed characters, and the use of a writing style that has nothing to be jealous of the greats in the genre. The fact that I read this novel in one sitting, really speaks to how much I liked it and the kind of grip that the story gets on the reader. I have had this happen to me before with several mystery novels, but this was one of the few times I experienced it with literary fiction.

When Kathy arrives at San Pedro and rents a room in Pacific Avenue, she is at the bottom of a deep hole. A series of terrible events have affected her life and she is trying to find the strength to move forward and forge a new future. This is where she meets Lacey, a middle-aged woman that is going through a crisis herself, after her daughter left for college and "does not need her anymore". Kathy is the perfect pet project for Lacey, who does not need long to see that the youngster carries a heavy burden and is in desperate need of help. Thus, starts this novel, which alternates the narration in first person between these two complex and mesmerizing characters. The story also goes back and forth in time, between past and present, and as we learn more about Kathy's misfortune, we get drawn deeper and deeper into this wonderful novel.

There are several interesting topics intertwined in this story, such as interracial marriages, the effects of war, and infant death. The author treats these topics seriously and delves deep into how they affect the characters of her story.

I do not feel I exaggerate when I say that this is one of the best books I have read in the last few years. I am looking forward to discovering more works by this great author.

i admit it.. chuck palahniuk is not for everyone, but for those who can stomach him .. he is brilliant.. borderline sick but over the board genius... lulaby is as good as fight club if not better..

the plot is brilliant, it is fast paced and entertaining with its fair share of the Palahniuk wisdom .. and although the plot is full of clues and giveaways, at least i myself did not see the surprises coming.. and the make perfect sense.. and although lulaby is based on a stretch of fiction, chuck palahniuk makes it very believable...

don't read other people's summary of the plot it will ruin it for you.. if you liked fightclub the movie or the book, you will love lullaby

I don't think much of this book. It is a little scattered. One thing will be going on and then the next it's something different. It's very hard to follow. It was one of those books I thought was never going to end. It was very hard to stay focused and finish reading this book.

Strong words, perhaps, but having seen Fight Club, I believe neither Chuck nor his readers are pansies and can take it

And I'm counting 1, and I'm counting 2, and 3,

This, above, is what passes for showing rising anger in the book. The main character, Carl, stumbles upon an ancient song that kills people. Parents who read this lullaby to their babies kill them, and Carl is determined to find all the copies of the book and destroy them. On the way, he meets a real estate agent who assassinates people from a distance (using the song) in her spare time, a Wiccan, and a nature-loving, human-hating, power-hungry hunk named Oyster (oh and did I mention that Carl has anger management issues and a traumatic past?)

So there you have it: take something horrible, like the death of babies in their cribs, add a weird twist: lethal lullabies!, strange characters, freewheeling prose, miracles, psychopathic killers, environmental destruction... and write in a frenetic, hip way, so as to paper over the fact that you don't have a story, or a plot, or any idea what you want to do with this material

and I'm counting to 4, to 5, and to 6....
hey, I think i'll write a riff on modernity using that formula and no plot... do you think they'll publish me? maybe i'll also recycle that idea of hating humans and of wishing the earth covered in vines, and men returning to the good ol' days of hunting and gathering...rarrr... when we were in harmony with nature, and the neighbor's TV didn't drive us to homicidal anger

this review, if it seems a little disjointed, I apologize (by the way, this is the kind of syntax Chuck uses sometimes)... it's a mirror held to the work, so what it reflects is just the truth

The thing that i liked is that Chuck used some interesting factoids about alien species colonizing America (starlings, carp, etc.) and driving out or sickening the native species; this stuff was just thrown out, though, meant to shock you into hating modern humans and their careless, cruel ways

Final thought: mental killing, in a novel, is an interesting idea that looks good on paper but doesn't really work; first of all, it's not developed; second, once you remove limits from what people can do, things become boring... killing from a distance, yeah, levitation, yeah, occupying other bodies, yeah, whatever... it' the equivalent of saying, i like everybody, all men and women, regardless, and I can sleep with anyone... really, a story needs limits and a sense of the possible and impossible; otherwise it's just an extended 'what if', like when stoners talk...

Sorry for the ramble. Gonna go have a chicken sandwich.

This book grabbed me by the balls until I was done. I normally take a few months to get through a book, like Choke, but this was about a week. I would have only liked more main characters to die.

This my first time reading Palahniuk. To say that he's unique is an understatement. "Lullaby" starts with normal characters but rapidly unfolds into the strangest world imaginable. The pages turn quickly to build a unique place with strange events. Dark humor seeps unexpectedly from aberrant places. The reality presented becomes distorted and twisted, molded into a strange, mystical actuality. At times, as other reviewers mentioned, I felt that I was not be getting the full dramatic effect out of my reading, as if I couldn't grasp what was occurring. Although, by completion, the novel spoke to me with a depth and intensity I have not experienced before. For those who have read the Amazon review, I agree that Chuck Palahniuk expresses potent themes on human control and nature through "Lullaby". I recommend this novel to those seeking impact and an ending you will reflect on.
Thank you for reading,
C.K.

First off, the title alone implies that as a parent who lost her child to SIDS, there was something that I could've done to PREVENT our loss. There is nothing you can do to prevent SIDS, yes, you can minimize your risks, but not prevent it. The brief overview of the book sounds like it could be comforting in the wake of a SIDS loss, but it's very much decieving. I felt like this book did nothing but make me feel like we had done something wrong. If you're looking to read a book because of your own loss, stay away from this one, it will drive you even more crazy (I lost my own son to SIDS in November). Instead, read the SIDS book with the lighthouse on it. What a perfect cover for a perfect book. It still finds a way to guide me through my grieving.

As for the review below mine, I find that completely absurd! "at least they know they tried"?!??! I did everything right and my son is still dead, I'm not sitting back thinking, "at least I tried to keep him alive." My SON was not a PET FISH! This is obviously someone that has never dealt with a SIDS loss himself.

Instead of sitting back and doing nothing, Dr. Sears is encouraging parents to be proactive in preventing SIDS. At least if something happens, they know they tried.

It is true that no one knows exactly why SIDS happens, and Dr. Sears does not claim to be any different. He shares his own educated ideas about what MAY be behind it, and then offers possible solutions to the problem. He does not claim that following his advice will always prevent SIDS, or that all SIDS deaths could have been prevented if only the parents had been smarter--not at all.

I found this book to be very informative and reassuring. It is not the final answer to eradicating SIDS, but it is helpful.

As a parent who has lost an daughter from SIDS, I am not only offended by the title of this book but the editoral review. Joanni Horchler and Robin Morris' The SIDS Infant Survival Guide is about and for parents who have lost their infant from SIDS. It was very helpful to me following my daughter's death. It was the best book that I read in that it help me understand the feelings I had following her death. I have always had a great deal of respect for Dr. Sears' books but we cannot "prevent" SIDS until we know what causes it.

Starting with the title - there is NO PREVENTION for SIDS! None, nothing, no way. The first symptom of SIDS is DEATH. I can absolutely guarantee you that if there were a prevention for SIDS, my granddaughter would still be with us.If you think I am mistaken, do your own research. SIDS is NOT caused by sleep apnea or choking. SIDS is not caused by external suffering, such as by suffocation. It is not contagious, nor is it a result of neglected illness or child abuse. NO ONE IS TO BLAME FOR THE BABY"S DEATH. SIDS is also not a disease, nor can it be a diagnosis of a living baby. Anyone who believes they know a baby who "almost died of SIDS" is mistaken. THERE IS NO "NEAR MISS" SIDS CASE. If a child lived, it could not be SIDS since SIDS means death by definition. SIDS is NOT Preventable - there are things that may be risk reducers, but the word prevent should not currently be used in association with the word SIDS. Babies have died from SIDS while they were in someone's arms and had IMMEDIATE CPR. Please understand that SIDS is the number one cause of death of children between the ages of one month and one year. How dare this author even begin to use the word prevent in relation to SIDS? SIDS is a monstrous tragedy and as long as people believe there is a way to prevent SIDS, they are lulled into a false sense of security thinking it cannot happen to their baby, and they will not understand the need to push for more research to find the cause to stop this cruel thief of children. October is SIDS Awareness Month - please educate yourself about SIDS. Unfortunately, that is not possible with this book.