Home | Subjects | States | Librarians | FAQs | About Us | Publications | Contact Us

	DISABILITY RESOURCES ONLINE
	Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting on Resources For Independent Living
	Updated 6/2006
Back to Home Page

Keeping Katharine: A Mother’s Journey To Acceptance
By Susan Zimmermann

Three Rivers Press, 2004. Softcover, 240 pages, $13.00

 

Raising children is never an easy job, as even non-parents like me know. Add disability to family life, however, and parenting takes on still more challenges. In Keeping Katherine, Susan Zimmermann invites readers into her family life for a candid and highly personal look at the ways disability impacts all involved.

 

As they began married life, the author and her husband dreamed of all the things working professionals often consider as their birthright: good careers, healthy children, and a happy everafter. These dreams needed to be readjusted when their first daughter began experiencing problems no one could explain. Watching their happy, healthy child turn into a child who would eventually be diagnosed with Rett syndrome was difficult and life-changing. In this memoir, Zimmermann details the fear, exhaustion, strain, and occasional joy that accompany raising a severely disabled child. Zimmermann is painfully honest and open, making this book compelling, but, at times, difficult reading.

 

-Reviewed by Sally Rosenthal

 

About the reviewer: A former college librarian and occupational therapist, Sally Rosenthal is a frequent contributor to publications on the topics of animals and disability. When not reading books for review, she can be found enjoying the Spring weather with her guide dog Boise , husband Sandy, and their very vocal cat Toby The Insistent.