Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity [Paperback]

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one ofThe New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author ofThe Noonday Demonfeatures stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so—“a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity” (People).

Solomon’s startling proposition inFar from the Treeis that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.

Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker,Far from the Treeexplores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other—a theme in every family’s life.Far From the Tree
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Dwarfs

Until I attended my first dwarf convention—the 2003 Little People of America (LPA) meeting in Danvers, Massachusetts—I had no clue how many kinds of dwarfism there are, nor how manlă5