Homeschooled
A New York Times Bestselling Memoir and Read with Jenna Pick
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- 12,99 €
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK • A heartbreaking, empowering, often hilarious debut memoir about a mother’s all-consuming love, a son’s perilous quest to discover the world beyond the front door and the unregulated homeschool system that impacts millions like him
*A Top 10 Amazon Book of the Month Pick*
*A Washington Post Book to Read in January!*
*A Library Journal Big Book of the Week!*
*A BookRiot Best New Nonfiction of January!*
Stefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him from school, certain that his teachers were “stifling his creativity.” Hungry for more time with her boy who was growing up too quickly, she began to instruct Stefan in the family’s living room. Beyond his formal lessons in math, however, Stefan was largely left to his own devices and his mother’s erratic whims, such as her project to recapture her twelve-year-old son's early years by bleaching his hair and putting him on a crawling regimen.
In this “stunning debut memoir” (Jenna Bush Hager, The Today Show), Block beautifully reflects on his experiences in both traditional and at-home education systems, delving into:
The inception of the homeschooling movement and its massive rise throughout America Early memories of Block’s mother, and a poignant look into their dysfunctional mother-son story Block’s reentry into the public school system, both jarring yet insightful, and the bullying he withstood His emotional journey towards forgiveness, love, and hope as he becomes a parent himself
At once a novelistic portrait of mother and son, and an illuminating window into an overlooked corner of the American education system, Homeschooled is a moving, funny and ultimately inspiring story of a son’s battle for a life of his own choosing, and the wages of a mother’s insatiable love.
Praise for Homeschooled
"One of the most beautiful books I've ever read."—Jenna Bush Hager
“Absorbing.”—Washington Post
“A revealing and deeply empathetic portrait of a complex relationship between mother and son.” –BookPage, starred review
“Astonishing.”—The New York Post
"Clearly told with the steadiness of a masterful writer."—Isaac Fitzgerald
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Author Stefan Merrill Block gives us an intimate look at his family life and education in this fascinating, sometimes shocking memoir. Not long after the practice was legalized in Texas, Block spent five years being homeschooled by his emotionally unstable mother. Her teaching methods (which included playing trivia games in the pool and crawling on the ground to improve his penmanship) were more self-serving than effective. With agonizing detail, he shares just how out of step he was with his classmates when he eventually returned to traditional learning for high school. But what engrossed us as much as these unputdownably strange memories is the empathy that the adult Block has for his mother, who he now understands was very unmoored. Homeschooled is an insightful account of a profoundly complex relationship between mother and son.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Block (Life Lessons) delivers a wrenching account of his traumatic homeschooling in suburban Texas. Block's eccentric, emotionally fragile mother convinced him at a young age that he would be "the next Charles Dickens," and homeschooled him beginning at age nine in an attempt to protect him from being stifled by a traditional education. Her insistence on "rescuing" Block's creativity led to bizarre pedagogical experiments, including forcing him to crawl like a baby to test his motor control at age 12. Though he occasionally excelled, especially in math, Block paints a portrait of a childhood warped by codependency and unmet emotional needs. "Mom wanted only to hide away with everything she held dear," he writes, theorizing that this yearning was instilled in her by a childhood bout with polio. "It was exactly that hiding, and that holding too close, that took everything from her." He resists sensationalism or blanket indictments of homeschooling, but his testimony offers a sobering glimpse into what lobbyists have wrought by convincing politicians to strip away federal oversight in the name of "parental freedom." Lyrical, harrowing, and politically pointed, this is both a moving coming-of-age story and a clarion call for reform.
