Thank you Hachette Audio, #partner for the ALC of A Place Called Home in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: September 13, 2022
Summary:
There are millions of homeless children in America today and in A Place Called Home, award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for eleven years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day.
When David and his siblings should be in elementary school, they are instead walking the streets seeking shelter while their mother is battling mental illness. They rest in train stations, 24-hour diners, anywhere that’s warm and dry; they bathe in public restrooms and steal food to quell their hunger. When David is placed in foster care, at first it feels like salvation but soon proves to be just as unsafe. He’s moved from home to home and, in all but one placement, he’s abused. His burgeoning homosexuality makes him an easy target for other’s cruelty.
David finds hope and opportunities in libraries, schools, and the occasional kind-hearted adult; he harnesses an inner grit to escape the all-too-familiar outcome for a kid like him. Through hard work and unwavering resolve, he is able to get a scholarship to Vassar College, his first significant step out of poverty. He later graduates from UCLA Law with a vision of using his degree to change the laws that affect children in poverty.
Told with lyricism and sparkling with warmth, A Place Called Home depicts childhood poverty and homelessness as it is experienced by so many young people who have been systematically overlooked and unprotected. It’s at once a gripping personal account of deprivation—how one boy survived it, and ultimately thrived—and a resounding call for readers to move from empathy to action.
My thoughts:
This was the February bookclub pick for #ZibbysVirtualBookclub and even though I had to miss the meeting at the last minute, I’m glad I had the opportunity to read this book as it really was quite an extraordinary memoir. It actually reminded me quite a bit of another memoir I read, for another bookclub a few years back, Etched in Sand by Regina Calcaterra, which is also about growing up living in and out of foster care and how she overcame that and ultimately thrived, too.
This book is not an easy read. It’s heartbreaking and takes you on an emotional journey that will break you…but it’s a journey I’m so glad I took. This is why I love reading memoirs – to walk in someone else’s shoes and know that hard times doesn’t always mean the end. While this story was ever so bleak at times, I loved how David was able to turn things around and then become an advocate for those that find themselves where he had been.
My takeaway is that David shares this book as a way of looking towards reforming the system and not looking to blame the system. It’s broken, we all know that. But as someone who has gone through it, this offers such a unique prospective. He’s now doing something about it. I highly recommend picking this one up…as hard as it was at times, I know I won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.
Audio thoughts:
I love listening to memoirs, especially when the author narrates their own story. David was able to tell this story the way he wanted, putting emphasis on what he wanted emphasized. I think it just hits home a little harder when he gets emotional as he tells his own story.
