A friend remarked a number of years ago that writing a memoir has three stages–living the story, writing the story, and then sending the story out into the world. Each part contains its own risks, of course, but I'm feeling the vulnerability of part three these days. I want to defend myself against critics, even as I want to take criticism to heart and learn from it too. I want to rewrite sentences that don't seem quite right to me now that I have some distance from the prose. And I want to explain how things have changed since I wrote the book–that I'm not nearly as defensive as I was, that people don't need to worry about saying the wrong thing in my presence, that I'm starting to believe that people really do have Penny's best interest at heart most of the time, that the world isn't as scary as I had feared.

Thankfully, in the midst of feeling a need to defend myself against critics (and against myself!), I also receive the encouragement of other people–writers, mothers, friends–who have read A Good and Perfect Gift and who think it's a story that matters. Here are three reviews, all different, all encouraging, all written by women with blogs or books of their own:

From Meriah, a woman I only know through the wonderful world of the blogosphere, and whose blog (Doozedad) I highly recommend you spend some time reading. Meriah writes as a fellow mother of a daughter with Down syndrome. From her review:

Amy Julia is an honest examiner with a clean poetic bent. She infuses the house of her Faith with huge blasts of spiritual air, gulps of (sometimes painful) self-reflection and a relentless pursuit for truth. Finding the core of the matter . . . She scrutinizes hope. Fear. Investigates the "soft bigotry of low expectation." Mulls over concepts of beauty and our culture. Faith. Amy Julia is an analyzer and let me tell you: she takes the scalpel and dissects faith. She is a hard-thinking Christian, the kind that I (not being Christian), most thoroughlyenjoy.

Michelle Van Loon (a fellow her.meneutics writer) reviewed the book for her blog, Transforming Words. She writes:

. . . A Good And Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations and a Little Girl Named Penny (Bethany, 2011) is a shimmering, transparent look at [Amy Julia's] journey through joy shock, grief and concern for Penny's health. Becker had lived a life of blessing and privilege . . . Penny's birth into this intellectual and achievement-rich environment moved Becker to consider the ways she'd thought about intelligence . . . Penny served as Becker's tutor as the parents grieved their own expectations, dealt with the responses of the people in their world, and learned to parent their little girl . . .

Though this memoir has a natural audience among those who work with or are parents of special needs children, I believe A Good And Perfect Gift should be on the reading list of every parent, no matter what the age or I.Q of their kids. Well-written memoirs are meant to help us understand something new about our world and/or ourselves. Becker's book does both.

Margaret (Gary) Bender is the mother of a teenager with Down syndrome. Gary has shared a guest post on this blog before ("Celebrate!"), and she writes regularly at Down Syndrome Teenager. From her review:

hrough Amy Julia's stunning prose we share her journey and that of her family and friends. She helps us remember babies are babies first, and anything else is secondary. I loved reliving this part of our journey, as we will always grow and learn from our remarkable daughter, just as Amy Julia and her family have grown with Penny.

So it's a little scary having the book out there in this big world. But it's also wonderful to be in conversation with such thoughtful people. I hope you'll join the conversation. And, as usual, if you already own a copy of A Good and Perfect Gift, please feel free to spread the word!