The Tiger’s Child by Torey Hayden

[lightreads]

Nonfiction, memoir. One in a series in which Hayden recalls her work as a teacher and therapist for psychologically disturbed children. In this particular book, she reconnects with Sheila, a six-year-old girl she worked with in a previous book who was prone to violent rages and elective mutism. Sheila is a teenager now, and by tracking the course of her life this book squarely confronts some of the difficulties inherent in the 1-year school approach, and in Hayden's books themselves. It's incredibly meta-analytical (Hayden gives Sheila a pre-publication copy of the previous book about her, and they discuss
the different ways they remember things and personal motivations). Clever, complicated, self-reflective, a little rueful.