on, Amazon.com, April 2, 2015
I
think the thing I liked most about this book was the writing. You can
say what you will about the stories being sad and depressing, or
beautiful and uplifting, but it's the writing that really makes the
book. Akerman captures the sentimentality of being a child and being an
adult and the lessons and memories that come from that transition. While
no one has experienced all of the situations presented in the book,
Akerman writes it in such a way that you can't help but feel like you're
the character in the story. The only thing I didn't like was the way
the perspectives switch from first to third to second. It was a bit
disorienting when starting a new story. I'm sure this could be
compensated for my reading one story at a time, but I couldn't help but
read it all the way through in one sitting.
A wonderful and beautifully written collection of stories.
**I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
A wonderful and beautifully written collection of stories.
**I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
I hope Beverly Akerman scores a major book
publishing deal. This woman CAN write. Her short stories in this book
are poignant and powerful. I was left thinking about the characters and
stories for weeks after finishing the book. This is an outcome every
writer would dream of accomplishing. The things we experience in our
childhood shape us into adults we are today. I saw myself in so many
characters and stories in this book. I saw bits and pieces of my life. I
saw how I became who I am today.
The Meaning of Children is excellent.
The stories are witty, dramatic and often funny.
Bev has a strong voice. Waiting for the next one!
~Marianne Ackerman Montreal novelist & playwright
★★★★★
This powerful collection of short stories spans early childhood to death, with all the knobbly warts and under the bed monsters along the way. Beautifully written, each story having its own unique voice and tension. I found myself not able to put it down, saying, "I'll just read one more..."
~Melodie Starkey
★★★★★
Years ago, I read a remark to the effect that great writers are people who never forgot what it was like to be a child. Beverly Akerman remembers her childhood in every detail. She also remembers mine, and probably yours as well. She also remembers that for a parent there is no such thing as an unmixed emotion, and in these stories she uses emotions the way Monet used color. A collection to muse on, to savor, and to re-read.
~ Steven Hart
★★★★★
Spotted Jan. 2014 on LibraryThing:
This short story collection explores, as the title says, the meaning of children: both the meanings children ascribe to things, and they ways adults ascribe meaningfullness to children. In several of the stories, people are destoyed or redeemed through their relationships with children, or through the beliefs they developed in childhood.
The stories are well written -- sparse in style but deep in characterizations and in describing events that are, or with hindsight, become profound. Well done! (
)1 
| 
LynnB |***
October 2012: The Meaning of Children is co-winner of the
2012 J.I. Segal Jewish Book Award!
Jury comments:
"Beverly
Akerman’s collection of stories The Meaning of Children manages to
capture with both wit and wisdom the effervescence, the indignities, the
curiosity, and the fear that are part of a child’s eye view of the world. This
book is teeming
with wit and quality observation."
***
I'm very grateful & moved by the generosity
reviewers & other readers
are showing
reviewers & other readers
are showing
 |
| E-book, exclusively on Amazon |
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| Paperback available at fine bookstores and online |
The Meaning Of Children made the 2011 CBC- Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers' Choice Contest Top 10
A keen, incisive vision into the hidden world of children as well as intimate knowledge of the secret spaces that exist between the everyday events of life. A work with a brilliant sense of story…Magical, and so refreshing for me to read. I absolutely loved it and I hope it goes on to do marvellous things. Yours is a luminous talent.
~JoAnne Soper-Cook, Author and Judge, the Writers Federation of New Brunswick's 2010 David Adams Richards Prize
Akerman's thoughtful short story collection is
elegantly written and offers subtle insights as they are interpreted
and experienced through children. In
"The Mysteries," a young girl's brief encounter with a stranger forces
her to question the very nature of truth. "Broken" examines the
intricacies of gender in terms of loyalty and identification. Akerman
tackles more adult matters just as deftly–the inner turmoil stirred
during a reluctant abortion, the personal anguish of questionable
paternity, the devastation of losing a child—each story is nuanced and
compelling, leaving its imprint long after the last page is turned.
~Judges, 2012 Hoffer Award Finalist and Honorable Mention in General Fiction
Loved your book... read it in one sitting. I loved how after going from story to story... it led perfectly together into your last chapter's list.
~Mutsumi Takahashi, Anchor, CTV News Montreal; Interview
Haunting and powerfully emotive, drawing on the subtleties of childhood, youth and parenthood that undermine us in strange and unexpected ways. Your writing is polished and mature, something I am always in awe of and why I got into publishing to begin with.
~Meghan Macdonald, Transatlantic Literary Agency
This isn’t the invented childhood of imagination and wonderment…[here] children both corrupt and redeem: each other, family relationships and the female body.
Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others.
~Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette
A collection of 14 short stories which covers the range of
experience from the point of view of children, mums, and also aging parents as
well. It’s all there in this lovely little book, short stories about life in a
family that might just resemble yours. A wonderful
gift for mother’s day, perhaps more long lived than the usual cut flowers.
~Anne Lagacé Dowson, CJAD Radio journalist; Interview 
Anne Lagacé Dowson
Akerman engages with dichotomies. Childhood is that safe, magical, carefree time and place — but it’s also risky, threatening, ominous and dangerous — full of impenetrable mystery around things seen and experienced, but beyond understanding. And if it’s not too much of a simplification or stating the obvious, life and the world are not gentle on children simply for being children…If, as Dostoevsky once remarked, and as is quoted on the collection’s frontispiece, “The soul is healed by being with children,” it is the tragedy of adulthood that we become so isolated from childhood — and what children offer us. Artfully, evocatively, Beverly Akerman’s The Meaning of Children reminds us of that.
Beverly’s background as a scientist, MSc and twenty years as a molecular researcher, inevitably spills into the stories…characters, the settings and her style. Intelligent, objective, open-minded but not clinical, her prose is refreshing and unprejudiced. Her characters are frank and genuine...With The Meaning of Children, we get a beautifully written exposé on the meaning of life.
~Francine Diot-Layton, The Rover
Profound...a writer of such substance that she is obviously
headed to the top echelon of writers of our time...a book of rare sensitivity
and masterful creative writing [that] must surely be shared with as many
friends and fellow readers as possible.
I can't stop thinking about this book...I can't remember a book, let alone a
collection of short stories, where I could identify so heavily with the emotions
and feelings of the characters.
~Martin
Crosbie, author of My Temporary
Life,
***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com
Remarkable in its intensity and craft, The Meaning of Children is a book that bears discovering, and Akerman a writer to watch.”
~ Samuel Peralta, poet, author of Sonata Vampirica & other books, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com
Remarkable in its intensity and craft, The Meaning of Children is a book that bears discovering, and Akerman a writer to watch.”
~ Samuel Peralta, poet, author of Sonata Vampirica & other books, ***** (5 stars) on Amazon.com
~Hal Ackerman (no relation), UCLA Screenwriting Area Co-Chair and author of Stein Stoned and Stein Stung
All I seem to read these days are parenting books. But I think I might be learning more about being a parent from Beverly Akerman's The Meaning of Children than from anywhere else. I can't put it down.
~Jenn Hardy, Writer, Editor and Blogger at http://mamanaturale.ca
I adore your knack for leaving questions hanging in the reader's mind…and then there are those thought provoking zingers tucked neatly inside the last thought, description or action of your narrators. I haven't enjoyed short stories like this since Margaret Atwood, Barbara Gowdy and Alice Munro.
Beverly Akerman is what Alice Munro was supposed to be.
~Mike Rose (received by my publisher, via email)
A life-altering read is so rare for me, and I imagine for many writers, with a critical eye often hard to keep closed while hoping to get caught up and swept away while reading fiction for pleasure...Her stories are as diverse as her changing career path and yet string together a theme as connected as a genetic chain…Children weave their way through every tale…always sparking the reader to question where in all these stories sits their own story.
~Michelle Greysen, Writer, Editor, and Blogger
[You show us how] our childhood experiences affect us forever. And what we bury comes to the surface from time to time….The story about the woman who couldn't touch anything without it dying was sad and funny - loved the boys next door - and I liked PIE - as you have now given me a simple recipe that I can remember for pie crust -I am a baker. And the poor woman who had entered probably menopause and her marriage had broken without her noticing it. She was just so angry and exhausted. So many women I feel are and hide it.
~Carlene Orefici, a Facebook friend I haven’t met in real life (yet!)
Just finished “Like Jeremy Irons.” That was a tough one. Saying I loved it feels contrary to the agony I'm feeling right now. (Perhaps I shouldn't have settled into it with a glass of wine?) Awesome writing - even if my uterus is cramping!
~Lisa Dalrymple, Winner of The Writers Union of Canada’s 2011 Writing for Children Competition
I enjoyed The Meaning of Children so much that I wished there were twice as many stories! If I had to pick one, “Pour Un Instant” was my favourite. I was sad to come to the end of the book.
~Lisa De Nikolits, Author of The Hungry Mirror, on Amazon.ca
@Beverly_Akerman I am devouring your fabulous book The Meaning of Children!
~Alison Palkhivala, Writer and Editor, on Twitter
This morning I wrote to a friend in Victoria. I told her: ‘I finished Beverly Akerman's book and really liked it. The theme throughout is children: being a child, being pregnant, abortion, losing a child, being a father, giving a child for adoption. Touchy stuff but she has such kindness, such compassion and infuses hope and love in the saddest situation. She offers unique and surprising insights, it's never sappy or cliché. All this within the short story frame, quite a feat in my opinion. If you can't find her book, I'll send you my copy.’ Thank you for writing such an amazing book and for promoting yourself at the gym. It was a bold and creative move. I would have not known about your writing otherwise.
~Diane Des Roches, new gym friend and budding writer
Comments from the 2011 CBC-Scotiabank Giller Prize Readers’ Choice Contest:
Johanna from Kelowna: "As a social worker in child
protection I really appreciated the focus and the insights into the lives of
children demonstrated in the work The Meaning of Children by Beverly Akerman.
Our children are our future and deserve more attention, love and nurturing. Beverly's book is a method
to that purpose; she touched my heart to its core."
Kathe from Montreal: "I have been savouring the
stories one by one. I don't want this book to end. She writes so simply but
powerfully, and her characters stay with you."
B Maurene from Montreal: "If the reality of Akerman's
skilful weaving of tales that can be all too true of the way parents, families,
and cultures place their hopes and dreams on children hits home to contemporary
child bearers, she could be building a better world. Few who embark on the
journey of parenting ever realize how great the responsibilities are or how to
meet the individual needs of children, particularly those with difficulties. A
should read for college and university students, and a must read, among the
hundreds of pregnancy and child rearing how-to manuals, for parents attending
pre-natal classes."
Marla of Thunder Bay: "Beverly Akerman is an
extraordinary writer and I believe she deserves it."
Suzan of Ottawa: "It was an absolute joy to read.
I laughed out loud at some stories and wept shamelessly at others, all the
while savouring every skilfully handpicked word. One cannot read The Meaning of
Children and not be moved in some way by the stories therein. It is a beautiful
quilt, made of exquisitely crafted pieces which when taken as a whole is so
much more than a sum of its parts."
Eva from Maple Ridge: "The
Meaning of Children should win because it is important for the reader to view
situation from the child's perspective."
Lynn from Belle
River: "Beverly
Akerman would be a good candidate. Enlightening and refreshing."
Paula from Cornwall:
"In her book The Meaning of Children, Beverly Akerman gives us a snap shot
of the reality of childhood in diverse family situations. As and educator, I
understand too clearly that the reality that childhood is not always a
"Norman Rockwell" moment, but rather is a reflection of the very
complex perception of an individual child, whether pleasant or challenging, the
question remains, is the individual child free to be themselves or are they
encouraged to put on a mask to face their personal circumstances?"
Rusti of Stony Plain: "This
collection of short stories was stunning, captivating, wrenching and hopeful. I
wanted more when I finished the book."
Ken from Saskatoon: "The
author's insight into the minds of children and the lives touched by those
around them allow the reader to truly appreciate how impressionable these young
minds are, and how the events in our lives can effect how children perceive,
and register them. It also reminds me of how important my son is to me, as when
I face conflict or stress in my life, all of the problems dissapear intantly
when I see him smile at me."
Kayla from Timmins: "This author should make it to
this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize because she writes books on life's reality
which is a subject that may teach kids like adults about some of life's
matters."
Rocio from Mississauga: "I think Beverly Akerman,
with The Meaning of Children, should be considered, because throughout her book
she shows how children can change our world, with their hearts, dreams and
tenderness. They do not even know how much this world changes for the best just
because they are part of it, and that is really touching and marvellous."
Pauline from Montreal: "Beverly Akerman's The Meaning
of Children takes an eyes-wide-open look at real families. No sentimentality
here yet there's a ring of truth to the often quirky situations people find
themselves in that made me smile with recognition. A wry smile at times, but
Akerman writes pitch-perfect prose. This is Canadian story-telling at its
best."
Felicia from Boisseavain:"The
book touches on a lot of the biggest parental 'what ifs.' Kidnapping. Hate
crime. Death by drowning. Suicide. Even so, it would make a good gift for a new
mother. Akerman holds up our greatest fears, not to dwell on them, but to
marvel at our commitment to life, especially to passing it on to others. Says
one character, looking back, 'Life had been perfect ' but I'd been too busy to
notice."
Valerie from Toronto: "As an early childhood educator
I feel it really conveys the voices of children and parents in our
society."
Frances from Port Coquitlam:
"An in depth look at the inner turmoils of a childs life and/or those who
care for them and how life experiences can have such an impact on our stories
and journies through life. An interesting study on this subject."
Kimberly from Shawnigan Lake:
"I believe Beverly Akerman's, The Meaning of Children has amazing insight
with its many stories. I loved them all, Life is what happens in the meantime.
Great read and would highly recommend."
Mona from ND Ile Perrot:"I'd
like to suggest Beverly Akerman. Her book, The Meaning of Children is written
with a refreshing sincerity. Loved it!"
Carrie from Spruce Grove: "I
think that it takes a special kind of skill to coordinate short stories into a
piece that is well written and thought provoking- without losing one's initial
objectives."
Crystal from Nanaimo:
"The Meaning of Children is my submission as it is told through the voices
of children. What can be better than to hear 14 different stories of growing up
and dealing with important issues? Each child tells their stories so vividly
and honestly, you feel sorry for them, as if you know them. This book is
extremely well written and gripping."
Catherine from Whitby: "Well written, captivating
perspectives on life's stages."
Rajini from Canada: "I think that Beverly
Akerman should make the long list. Akerman's The Meaning of Children is a dark,
thought-provoking read that is certainly worthy of the 2011 Giller Prize."
Comments from editors and
contest judges on individual stories:
“Emotional and tightly written.”
~David Bright, Gemini
Magazine
“Solid and very funny. Great stuff!”
~Karl Jirgens,
Editor, Rampike
“Oh, it's lovely. I like it when my body responds to
writing; right now there's an ache in my throat.”
~Susan Rendell, EarLit
Shorts
“The judges liked…the resistance to the happy ending, and
the idea that there is often something or someone waiting for the small
mistake.”
~The Writers’ Union
of Canada,
2007 Short Prose Competition Jury
“I love the mystery and the fear in this story--the ending
works so well.”
~Colleen Donfield, The
Sun
“I
entered all the changes in “Six Pixels [of Separation]” and just read (again)
the whole thing out loud...What a fantastic essay! I love it more with each
reading!”
~Sylvia Legris, Editor, Grain Magazine
~Sylvia Legris, Editor, Grain Magazine
Your voice is so distinctive, and the story leaves me aching. Wonderfully meaningful writing.
A superb voice.
This is so well set up, and at the end you
get that "oh, no" feeling. The ending hurts; I agree with Beate.
Wonderfully written; deft and powerful ending.
This is a marvelous piece. Great work, Beverly. Made me think of Patty Griffin's
song "Making Pies".
I made pies your way for 20 years, wonderful - crisco, ummm - no more - we
worry too much about cholesterol. But we are still alive, so phooey! A great
piece.Nice story. I'm craving some pie now. Can't wait to get back to the US and smother my face in all that fatty deliciousness.
Love the voice of this story. I'd listen to
all kinds from this narrator. Front porch stuff. Let's get this on tape stuff.
The live forever stuff.
Holy-boly, Bev. Yeah, I cried when where
this was going broke through the crust. "But you can only compare a boy
and a pie so far." What a blood-pie of a story. Hit the heart. Great work.
Love the deceptive simplicity of the voice,
love the way the emotion crept up on me and then overtook me. Love.
So deftly balanced, the literal and the foreboding..."one thing I know, holding them close is the making of men, not the ruining." And then very near the end: The tart bleeding into the sweet. Oh, my I'd like another piece of pie...Big lump in the throat fav!
Amazing story. It deserves every honor.
Look for me at Goodreads and on Facebook (both me & my book). Stop by if you have a chance, set a spell. And we can share a piece a mah "Pie."
