Now I See the Moon

Starred review from May 24, 2010
In this especially timely, painstakingly positive work, a children's film coach recounts her adoption of a troubled Russian toddler and her long, tortuous, ultimately enlightening journey to treat his nonverbal autism. A former actress, Hall worked as a successful "baby wrangler" for Hollywood feature films; 40-something, married nine years, active in her Jewish faith, and devastated by successive miscarriages, she along with her then husband traveled to an orphanage in Yekaterinburg, Russia, to adopt a quiet two-year-old. Neal, as she named him, couldn't speak or make eye contact, and despite Hall's belief in his innate intelligence, the boy was eventually diagnosed with "severe sensory dysfunction." She beautifully chronicles Neal's development to the age of his bar mitzvah vis-à-vis his responses—positive and negative—to the slew of experts and coaches Hall found to create therapies tailored to his very individual needs. Though Hall's marriage dissolved under the pressure of Neal's care, and there were moments Hall truly believed she and her son were "slouching toward normal," she had to accept that Neal would never be "cured" of autism. She created her life's work in the Miracle Project, a theater arts program for autistic kids (eventually made into the Emmy Award–winning documentary Autism: The Musical).