One Small Boat

January 30, 2006
As a follow-up to her account of providing foster care to at-risk children, 2003's Another Place at the Table
, Harrison focuses on one particularly challenging child. Foster parents in Massachusetts since 1988, Harrison and her husband have three children by birth, three by adoption, and a flock of kids staying with them who need short-term care. Into this mix comes Daisy, a five-year-old with a speech impediment who slowly reveals a history of sexual abuse. The way in which Daisy folds into the busy Harrison family, and the difference in her behavior when she's around her spaced-out birth mother, demonstrate how much environment can affect a child's demeanor and development. Harrison shows such honesty about her emotions and her limitations as a foster parent that Daisy's heartbreaking story is even more searing. The memoir also offers a glimpse into the lives of foster parents, who are often depicted as indifferent or awful. Harrison and her husband, on the other hand, are good, caring people who struggle to care for a passel of emotionally bruised children—and usually succeed.

April 1, 2006
Harrison -s family might come home on any given day to find a strange child -disheveled, scared, and angry -in their home. As emergency-placement foster parents, Harrison and her husband have sheltered and cared for well over 100 children from varyingly tragic circumstances while raising their three birth children and three adopted children and demonstrating the passion and sacrifice of good parents in a much-maligned undertaking. Effectively a sequel to her first memoir, " A Place at the Table", this book illumines another chapter in the lives of Harrison -s younger children and temporary charges, in particular a needful and affecting little girl named Daisy. With her odd behaviors and phobias, Daisy had special needs that were severe but not unheard of -yet unlike many foster children, her birth mother was educated and relatively well-off. As she learned to trust the Harrisons and enjoy their encouragement, Daisy began to thrive, but along with new accomplishments came evidence of the horrors she -d suffered. Harrison serves as witness to the nearly unimaginable experiences of abused and neglected children and advocates for their care. Her books should be read by policymakers as well as general readers. Warmly recommended." -Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington Libs., OH."

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2006
Harrison, who was named as one of Massachusetts' Foster Parents of the Year and is the author of " Another Place at the Table" (2003), this time offers an intimate portrait of one of the hundreds of children she has nurtured in her home. Five-year-old Daisy suffered from eating disorders and a severe speech impediment, and had a history of a violent relationship with her mother. Unlike Harrison's other foster children, Daisy was from a well-to-do, though emotionally ineffectual, family. Harrison struggled to fathom how and why Daisy was in the foster system and learned her harrowing secret, falling in love with the quirky little girl. All the while, Harrison cared for other foster children and learned that her own adopted daughter, Karen, had developed Tourette's syndrome. Harrison offers frank and honest assessment of the foster care system, as well as her own shortcomings and occasional hubris. She focuses on the emotional and psychological damage to some children and the desire for storybook endings in the face of the reality of dubious adoption placements and children returned to ill-prepared parents. A riveting, deeply personal look at foster parenting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)