A Good and Perfect Gift

Starred review from July 11, 2011
Becker (Penelope Ayers: A Memoir), a Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary graduate, knows how to grab a reader's heartstrings as she writes about her journey as a new mom to Penny, her first child, who has Down syndrome. The author keeps a journal in her early days as a mother, a time when her faith, her expectations, and her fears ran a gamut. Becker tells how impressed she has always been with intelligence, and now her little girl will lack this gift so important to Becker. Or would she? This beautifully written text explores how Becker and her husband deal with the news of having a child with a disability and the transformation they undergo as time passes. Each journal entry opens a new chapter of Penny's growth, and with every change in Penny comes a corresponding response of grateful joy in everyone else. Becker's work is introspective and theologically inquisitive, leading readers to ask the same questions this mother asks herself as her world tilted off its axis.