Spinning Straw: The Jeff Apple Story

by Patricia M. Apple, Phyllis J.D. Green, Phyllis J.D Green

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1896230148
• ISBN13: 9781896230146
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Diverse City Press
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

"Spinning Straw" has a sense of reality rarely captured

Art does not usually imitate life. We usually finish reading a book or viewing a movie and we feel disappointed in life, as though we've been cheated from the media's idea of dramatic, yet glamorous lives. We sometimes even draw in because the half-truths told by film and novels tell us we are odd and unacceptable when we or our circumstances aren't perfect. "Spinning Straw" is different. It is cathartic because it tells the whole story of life. Some of the pictures Phyllis Green paints of Pat Apple's story of her son and family are so lovely you feel the depth of beauty the sun has when peering out of a cloudy sky. Other word pictures hurt your heart they are so sad. But what would life be without its ups and downs? "Spinning Straw" remembers that in order to truly feel we have to feel both pain and ecstatic joy. We do not get to pick one or the other. And I promise you, when you finish reading "Spinning Straw"-- and you will once you start it-- you will agree that life is worth the chance of sadness when happiness is allowed as well, as the story of little Jeff Apple is filled with both extremes.

Heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and educational "as told to."

Green doesn't just tell the Jeff Apple story -- she seems to have lived right through every minute with the Apple family. Her honest portrayal of all that was endured by a family dealing with a little-known (or at least little-talked of) affliction will -- HAS -- finally opened doors for others in similar situations. While many readers may not be able to imagine life with Jeff Apple or someone else with self-injurious behavior, after reading Spinning Straw, most of us find it hard to imagine life without them.

Visualize the lifeblood flowing through slices of endurance.

Author Phyllis Green's almost irritatingly breathless prose guides us on the relentless journey with the Apple family. In the sixties, Jeff Apple's disability could not be found in text books. Spinning Straw is perhaps the only biography of an autistic child who is a severe self-injurer. From the age of two-and-a-half, Jeff Apple assaults his own body.Autism is probably the third most common developmental disability. Over 500,000 individuals in the U.S. have some form of autism - identified as a communication disorder that makes it hard to communicate verbally or nonverbally with the outside world. Typical signs are repeated body movements, unusual responses to people or attachments to objects, a resistance to non routine environments, and sometimes, aggressive behavior or self-injurious behavior. [The latter is officially known as "SIB."] An articulate wordsmith, Green, helps Mother Pat Apple share the family's heartache as Jeff's self-violent behavior gets worse. The Apple family becomes submerged into an unknown world, a world with little comprehension. We are inspired through the endurance and determination of the Apple family's everyday life. Despite Jeff Apple's overpowering urge to self-destruct, he provides subsequent insight into the meaning of humanity. This true story stimulates readers to appreciate the true quality of life. In Spinning Straw, the writer delves into a human experience teaching us more about the human condition.

The golden words made me cry and laugh-I loved it!

Phyllis J.D. Green spins magic with her words. It is an incredible and touching story and I am thrilled that Paticia M. Apple's voice can be heard through the wonderful writing of the author. Accolades for a beautiful testimony of love and understand.

I couldn't put it down.

Spinning Straw made me laugh, wince, and cry. It is more than a story of autistic boy. It shows a family that happens to have a child with a serious handicap. It shows their ups and downs, the emotional roller coaster of raising a handicapped child. As a mother of an autistic child, I could feel for what this family went through. However, you don't have to have a handicapped child to be moved by this book. Any parent or anyone who knows children will be touched by this book. Spinning Straw pulls at the heart strings.