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A review of Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World

by Debra Ginsberg

A mother's struggle to raise a child unlike any other.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Santiago
About Jennifer Santiago

Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World In this powerful book, author Debra Ginsberg shares the true story of her struggles to raise her charming yet unconventional son, Blaze. From the moment he enters the world, dozens of hours into a painful and difficult labor, Ginsberg knows her child is different. Strangled by his double-looped umbilical cord, Blaze is unable to even muster "enough breath to cry." His troubled arrival into the world sets the tone for the next 13 years of his life, chronicled in "Raising Blaze: Bringing Up An Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World."

Alternately heart-wrenching and heart-warming, the story ostensibly covers the day-to-day battles of getting Blaze through mundane tasks like eating sandwiches, but on an deeper level, it explores the range of emotions experienced by a hard-working single mom raising a challenged son- fierce pride, lilting joy, sheer exhaustion, abject guilt and profound despair.

As a small boy, Blaze is eccentric, opinionated and simply brilliant. He can critique and discuss the entire oeuvre of Miles Davis by age 4. He writes lyrics to his own blues songs and accompanies himself on the guitar. He is open, loving, and possesses a singularly sophisticated sense of humor.

His successes, sadly, are overshadowed by a string of medical problems, from low Apgar scores at birth to severe asthma to growth hormone deficiency. And when Blaze starts kindergarten, the problems really begin. Although capable of handling the assigned work, Blaze proves to be a handful for his teachers. From developing a crippling fear of fire drills and butterflies to his quirky way of expressing himself ("the puppies are on fire" is his way of saying he is afraid), Blaze's idiosyncratic behavior drives teachers and administrators to pigeonhole Blaze as a "special-ed case." This sends Ginsberg into a frenzy of visits with pediatricians, educational specialists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Blaze's undiagnosable condition stumps the doctors. "If you were very wealthy," one psychologist says, "Blaze would just be considered charmingly eccentric." Another psychologist declares that Blaze is autistic and profoundly disabled.

Ginsberg immerses herself in the educational system to better navigate the maze of special-ed. Along the way she encounters overworked, underpaid and burnt-out teachers who will do anything to get Blaze off their hands (one teacher goes so far as to lie and report that Blaze rocks incessantly and makes bizarre noises, in an attempt to make his behavior seem much more uncontrollable than it really is.) Ginsberg also meets supportive, loving teachers who share her belief in her son's brilliance. Mr. Davidson, the sixth-grade teacher and an angel on earth, transforms Blaze into a mature and independent young man in the course of a single school year, simply by having high expectations for Blaze and holding him to those standards. Ginsberg's fight to get to the bottom of her son's school difficulties is constantly underscored by societal pressure to cure all with a pharmaceutical cocktail, and her staunch resistance to this approach.

Ginsberg's story offers moments of sheer hilarity, like when Blaze, under the influence of "South Park" addicted classmates, calls his teacher a "dick," and when a girl in Blaze's class tells Ginsberg, "[Blaze] said he was going to stick a knife in my wiener." Readers will also be charmed by Blaze's witty dialog and magical worldview. (When Ginsberg tells him that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, he responds, "I know that, Mom. But she does come.") Ginsberg expounds so thoroughly on the virtues of her son that by the middle of the book when Blaze reads an original poem at a school-wide assembly, the reader is as anxious and proud as Ginsberg herself.

Through the ups and downs, Ginsberg possesses a razor-sharp wit, superhuman emotional strength, and an unshakeable belief in her son that keeps them both going. Her story is a testament to the power of love, and a lesson in what we can learn by viewing life through the eyes of a child.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Raising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World

Copyright © by Jennifer Santiago, 2002

Reviewed by Jennifer Santiago:
-- The Lovely Bones - by Alice Sebold
-- 30 Minute Meals - by Rachael Ray
-- Raising Blaze - by Debra Ginsberg
-- Backpack - by Emily Barr
-- You Are Not a Stranger Here - by Adam Haslett
-- Bookends - by Jane Green
-- A Confederacy of Dunces - by John Kennedy Toole
-- Ash Wednesday - by Ethan Hawke
-- All Saints' Day - by Brent Benoit
-- The Stepford Wives - by Ira Levin
-- The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating - by David M. Buss
-- Literary New Orleans - by Judy Long (Editor)
-- The Sopranos Family Cookbook - by Allen Rucker; Recipes by Michele Scicolone
-- Atonement - by Ian McEwan
-- The Crimson Petal and the White - by Michel Faber
-- Midnight Bayou - by Nora Roberts
-- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - by Ann Brashares
-- The Zygote Chronicles - by Suzanne Finnamore
-- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - by J.K. Rowling









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