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	Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting on Resources For Independent Living
	Updated 11/2006
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Letters To Sam: A Grandfather’s Lessons On Love, Loss, And The Gifts Of Life
By Daniel Gottlieb

Sterling Publishing, 2006. Hardcover, 175 pages, $17.95.

 

As a Philadelphian whose radios are all tuned to National Public Radio, I have been listening to local psychologist Dan Gottlieb’s weekly interview and call-in show “Voices In The Family” for years. As his many local and internet listeners will attest, Gottlieb’s inquisitive and thoughtful brand of advice is both engaging and quietly motivating. Now, in his third book, Letters To Sam, Gottlieb switches from a talk radio format to a print medium, a move that should gain him an even wider circle of fans.

 

In this deceptively simple and concise series of letters written to his six-year-old grandson, the author imparts the wisdom of one generation to a younger one. While this is certainly not a unique literary theme, what sets Letters To Sam apart is the special bond of disability linking this grandfather and grandson. Injured in a car accident over twenty-five years ago, the author has been forthcoming on the air about how living with quadriplegia changed his life. In these intimate letters to Sam, who has autism, however, Gottlieb combines his own life lessons with his hopes for Sam’s future in musings and reflections that go beyond the personal to the universal. Highly recommended.

 

-Reviewed by Sally Rosenthal

 

About the reviewer: A former college librarian and occupational therapist, Sally Rosenthal is a regular contributor to magazines, anthologies, and websites specializing in the subjects of companion animals and disabilities. Having recently retired her beloved guide dog Boise for medical reasons, she is awaiting the arrival of a second guide dog, much to the chagrin of Toby The Insistent, the rescued feline who keeps Sally and her husband in line and catering to her every whim.