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Hope's Boy: A Memoir | 
| Author: Andrew Bridge
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $12.25
You Save: $10.70 (47%)
New (38) Used (13) from $11.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 11452
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1401303226
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.733092
EAN: 9781401303228
ASIN: 1401303226
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book. Not a remainder.
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Product Description
From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother Hope shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old.Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 Parents and teachers! Don't miss this book. July 15, 2008
This is not a book to miss. All too often, it falls to a teacher to recognize and act on the needs of a child. It can be a responsibility of a parent to make their children aware of the meaning of "foster children" and how to treat and include these children into their activities. Andy's story is repeated in every court system in this country. So many children fall through the cracks. Despite her own mental illness, Hope finds a way to assure Andy that she loves him and later realize she did what she could do under the circumstances. Without this, Andy could have ended up the way the majority of children in the system do. A simple act of kindness could change a child's life.
An Important Book and an Extraordinary Read July 15, 2008
Hope's Boy is a profoundly important book for all of us to read. Though other books about foster care have been written, few ever go into the inner life of child and what that child feels, thinks, and misses after enduring a devasting loss and the most tragic conditions. Equally refreshing is that Mr. Bridge shows not a bit of self-pity, acknowledging and describing the children that he saw and still remembers who suffered even great losses than he did. This is a story about a boy who loved a deeply flawed mother -- one struck down with a horrific mental illness through no fault of her own.
Bridge reminds the reader that simply warehousing a child in foster care -- giving him bed and food -- is not enough. We take these children into all of our care and we owe them the love and the nuturing needed to care and to tend for them.
Apart from an extraordinary story, the book is a beautiful read. It is tenderly written account about love and children who endure more than they ought to and often need to have endured.
Mr. Bridge has commited his life to helping these children. He has never forgotten or turned his back on them. As a Harvard Law School graduate, he could have done that. He did not. We should all remember these children as he does. We live in a society where hundreds of thousands of children wait for hope.
 Beginnings of a good story, but lacks convincing detail June 14, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
*Minor spoilers*
The beginning of Andy's story, first with Grandma Kate and then with Hope, is very compelling. It is clear that he has taken pains to recall everything he could about a brief but influential window in his life.
However, after the first year or two in foster care, the details start to become few and far between, and it felt somewhat empty to me. Like some of the other reviewers, I found his perspective on his foster family to be skewed. I wanted to believe him, but I simply found the Cinderella-esque description of his life in this setting to be a bit flimsy. Oh my God, Mrs. Leonard made terrible snacks and wore garage-sale clothes! And did I mention she was FAT??
This family shared a home with him for a decade and did more for him than Hope did. When a social worker tells the adult Andy that Hope came close to winning him back several times but sabotaged the reunion at the last minute, why didn't he consider that maybe Hope DIDN'T want him back? He shows more generosity in his memory of a woman who seriously endangered him and reduced him to living in a closet and stealing cat food than he does for a family that provided him with a home and some semblance of security, if not love, for 11 years. He admits that he stayed in touch with the Leonards even into his years with the law firm, but he doesn't fully explain why beyond grudgingly saying it was a place to go to at Christmas or on school breaks.
I think in the end he has a very important point to make, that he would have preferred what he perceives was his mother's love and transient life over the relative stability but frigid conditions in foster care. But I'm not sure how that translates into reality for the thousands of children who are removed from their families each year. Bridge raises many questions, but he doesn't offer realistic answers. He hints that someone should have told him Hope wanted him back, or that someone should have helped Hope reunite with him. But how could this be achieved? Hope battled a serious mental illness, and he does a valiant job of defending her, but realistically, what can the state do to help a schizophrenic woman maintain ties to her child? If he has ideas -- and he may very well might -- they aren't noted here in any detail.
What a great "take-away" message of Hope! June 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A friend of my wife's recommended Hope's Boy. It drew me in immediately. Bridge tells his story in such a way that I kept reading, wanting to find out more about what would happen to him and Hope. His writing style is poignant, yet without self-pity. I was struck by the profound loneliness he felt - being taken from his mother, and then living in a foster home where he was treated indifferently, at best, and abusively, at worst. Yet, despite all of those obtacles, he relied on his strengths and belief in Hope's love for him to persevere and excel in the ways that the "outside" world valued and rewarded, while keeping his "inside" world hidden. High school honors, college scholarship to Wesleyan University, Harvard Law School, Fulbright Scholar, legal advocate for kids in foster care. What a great take-away message of the power of hope!
A Read for Anyone Who Works with Children June 8, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Andrew Bridge has written an extraordinary memoir about our country's most vulnerable women and children. Anyone who works with children and families or cares about what we need to do to help them should read this book.
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