Hope's Boy: A Memoir Reviews

• Hope's Boy is Haunting and Unforgettable

  
  By A11DGRKTSFO3NL on 2008-02-05
  I was deeply moved by "Hope's Boy," Andrew Bridge's haunting elegy of a childhood that seemed to be lost forever when the author, at age 7, became a ward of the State after being taken from the arms of his young mother on a street corner in North Hollywood, California. Mr. Bridge's unsparing chronicle of his experiences on the front lines of our nation's foster care system -- including his time in a facility that seemed more like a prison camp, and his rearing by a sadistic foster mother, who herself was a prison camp survivor -- opened my eyes more widely to the system's endemic problems than any piece of investigative journalism on the subject ever could. But, at its core, Mr. Bridge's book is a heartbreaking, unforgettable love story about a mother and her son. Even though Mr. Bridge's mother, Hope, appears intermittently throughout his memoir, I felt her presence, even in her absence, on every single page of his book. I don't know that I've ever read anything more powerful about love and loss than Mr. Bridge's searing prose about his mother's embrace as she struggled to hold onto him when he was being pried from her arms. And ultimately, I was inspired by how Hope's love gave the boy, Andy, the strength to pursue, and, ultimately, achieve his goals. The adult Andrew has given a proud, defiant voice to the boy and his mother. I, for one, am glad to have heard them and hope that many others will too.
  
  

• Devastating and Unforgettable

  
  By A6LLU9802L8V5 on 2008-02-05
  "Some families cannot be saved and their children cannot be return. Yet, even then, their love for each other must be worth something."
  -- Andrew Bridge, Hope's Boy
  
  This is a brave memoir about our nation's horribly broken foster care system, that all too often fails our children and families who are in most need and who are most vulnerable. With a steady and elegant voice, Bridge describes a mother who loved him desperately, and in the end, did more than most would ever ask of themselves, all the while savaged by mental illness. With tenderness, he describes how love can exist alongside failure and how a mother can ultimately "love a child more than she can care for him." The story is profoundly inspirational, told without a trace of bitterness - and clearly required tremendous courage to write.
  
  Bridge went on to Wesleyan University, graduated from Harvard Law School, then devoted his life to the children he remembered -- children with broken lives who still wait for something far better than we give them.
  
  An excellent read - an important one, too.
  
  

• The Power of Perseverance and Resilience

  
  By A2F1G51JUXWM0M on 2008-02-05
  I was delighted to read Hope's Boy. It reminds me why I'm a social worker. Connections with others, and the need for them, are at our core. They are powerful and enduring, as is the sense of loss when they are broken. In Bridge's case, social workers and the foster care system broke his physical connections to his mother and grandmother. As social workers, our role is to support, honor and do everything we can to sustain the core bond between parent and child. We failed to do that for Bridge. Despite our failures, Bridge held close his memories of Hope, developing his own extraordinary capacity for resilience. He lends a powerful voice to so many foster children who have learned to "be still," who continue to long for their own enduring bond with a forever parent. We can and must do better for them. I try to do that each day, for every youngster and family with whom I work. And I'm trying to teach that to the next generation of social workers, as well, who face a whole new set of challenges to keep children safe while they support and sustain the forever bonds they have with their parents. Thanks again for a wonderful reminder of our responsibility to nurture resilience and hope in all children.
  
  
  

• Disturbing and heartwrenching

  
  By A15Z5D2RZP7AH2 on 2008-03-15
  This book held my interest to the very last page, but only when I read the epilogue did I shed a few tears of rage.
  All the loneliness, the cruelty and chronic absence of nurturing and support in Andrew Bridge's life did not fill me with despair as much as the description of his fight as an adult, and an accomplished lawyer, to fight back against the very system that held him in bondage for his entire adolescence.
  As a former court appointed special advocate in Colorado (CASA), and now a legal assistant for a Guardian ad litem specializing in family and juvenile law, I see on a daily basis how crippled and inadequate are our bureacracies in regard to foster care and all the children held in its limbo.
  The courts are crowded, there aren't enough good homes, and the cases just keep coming...
  I know from firsthand experience that children long for their parents, even when neglect feels like the norm and things at home are substandard.The system too often removes the kids, lets them languish too long in foster placements, and fails to provide appropriate support to the parents. ( An eight week class for meth addiction, or a six week workshop to end a life's cycle of domestic violence, etc.) We put band-aids on these families and heal very few of them. Emancipation at 18 is a frightening step for kids who have never had what the average child needs and has provided for him until the age of 26. Andrew Bridge was a victim of our inadequate system, but survived to become a voice to reckon with. His is a story that should not have happened, but the world is better for his courage and honesty in writing this book.
  I will allow Andrew Bridge's words to inform my approach to working with the foster kids in Colorado.I also know now that to mention an absent parent's love and struggles should not be a taboo.It might be the very thing that is missing, regardless of the outcome for a family. Thank you, Andrew Bridge.
  
  

• A Beautifully Written Deeply Moving True Story

  
  By ASE3NM255OT55 on 2008-02-07
  Hope's son is a beautifully written deeply moving true story that violates conventional wisdom about what is in a child's best interest and affirms the redemptive power of education. Hope loves her son and wants to raise him herself; however, poverty and mental instability undermine her ability to do so. Andrew Bridge, her son, was removed from his mother and placed in the foster care--a system that neither provided more opportunity nor a better life. The intact family he was eventually placed with was in no way an adequate substitute for his mother. Andrew is one of the lucky ones. Academic achievement led to scholarships for college and law school, giving him the skills to fight for foster children and to challenge assumptions about where society's resources are best used--to build a better foster care system or to help parents raise their children. This is a book that speaks both to your emotions and your intellect and does so with passion, wit and first hand experience.
  
  
• A Young Man's Courage
  By AXB7O6621G5DP on 2008-02-26
  Andy Bridge's likeable childhood photo peers out from his bookjacket, but his eyes betray his face. Just slightly though. He has been trained to smile for the camera. It's a heartbreaking photograph and it drew me to the rack upon which the book sat. I know that look. Eager to please, yet mindful of the consequence of caring.
  
  Like a scene from a macabre Tennessee Williams play, Andy is ripped from his over-the-edge mother when she has one too many public meltdowns. "Hope's Boy" is whisked away from the scene. And like one of Williams' characters, from now on Andy's survival will depend upon the kindness of strangers.
  
  That's what kids learn when the bottom falls out. Some folks will like you, but most won't.
  
  Kids remember all the stings. And some of the encouragement. You learn to become an actor, to do what you're told, You've been broken young, by people who aren't your parents. It's just easier to go along to get along.
  
  In his probing memoir, Andy Bridges shows us in graphic detail exactly how good an actor he can be. And it is to his credit, as this quality keeps him tied to one family, the Leonards, for most of his remaining childhood.
  
  He learns that Mrs. Leonard, a Nazi survivor, has mood swings and he needs to stay out of her way. He overhears her gossiping with neighbors about his plight and those of the other foster children that pass through the Leonard's household. He sees there's a revolving door. There's no security here. But he promises to do better.
  
  Bridges' writing is candid, honest, self-effacing . . . and ultimately surprising.
  
  The touchstone of the story is young Jason, another foster child. This child's transformation in the household is portrayed in such a heartbreaking fashion that I found myself having to put the book down at times. It is obvious that the boy had a tremendous effect on Andy. His book is a tribute to Jason.
  
  I say the book is ultimately suprising because I didn't see the personal transformation Andy went through coming. I have seen this in other memoirs. The subject doesn't want to seem to be bragging perhaps. (Or could the security of his foster home have had something to do with it?) But all of a sudden this timid, introverted outcast is running for school body president, getting a scholarship to Wesleyan, wait! Now he's a champion debater.
  
  When did all this happen?
  
  Well, I'm glad it did, because Andrew Bridge, great name by the way, has become a "bridge" to other kids who, through no fault of their own, are cast into a bureaucratic system that strips them of their remaining dignity at just the moment they're most vulnerable. He bookends his memoir with an example of how he has put what he learned as an adult into action.
  
  I know a couple of people who were in the foster system in Los Angeles in the '70's. I've heard horror stories of all kinds of abuse. Bridge relates some of the tragedies pertaining to the arrival of another child into the Leonard household. What happens to the little girl in the body cast -- she is brought into the Leonard's home after being raped and attacked with a baseball bat -- is truly horrifying and you begin to wonder about the balance. The mythology surrounding the evil foster mother is second only to that of the wicked stepmother.
  
  Bridge doesn't exactly give the parents of these battered and abandoned children a free ride but he does reserve his greatest scorn for the "system." And for the Leonards.
  
  Although we don't get a very clear picture of the Leonard children, it seems that Andy has drawn away, realizing that he's just a paycheck to these people and they get to tell him what to do. He seems perplexed at the end why he even bothers to visit them anymore at the holidays and then he stops going.
  
  I found myself perplexed that Grandma Kate didn't swoop back in to rescue Andy, or that she even allowed him to slip from her grasp in the first place. He mentions this in passing later in the book and blames it on the cycle of poverty. He also notes that his mother herself spent some time in foster care when she was young.
  
  The tragedy of course is that it wasn't his mother's fault. They love each other. Bridge lays out why they had to be separated. He's very clear. He tries to cover as much as he can, praying she won't be taken away from him, even as her condition worsens.
  
  I wish Andrew Bridge all the best in life. And he has my gratitude for being such an articulate spokesman for the cause of child welfare.
  
  
  
• Haunting
  By A2JKXZ11UFVFCJ on 2008-02-05
  I was lucky enough to read an early version of this book, and it's stuck with me for all the months since then. Told with unflagging honesty, and about a life that's riveting and fascinating.
  
  
• A must-read for EVERYONE
  By A3AO9VRODAB8XS on 2008-02-05
  As a mother and a retired teacher, "Hope's Boy" was an emotional experience for me. It reminded me that children choose what is important to them. Mr. Bridge's memoir convinced me that a child brings with them his/her own needs that a bed in a stranger's house leave unsatisfied. I think that anyone who lives with, or works with, children should read this well-written book. It is disturbing that one little boy had this childhood. More disturbing is the fact that there are many children who have lived this life, are living this life, or will live this life if the foster system isn't re-evaluated.
  
  
• Hope's Boy - True Story of A Child Who Survived The 'Child Protective System'
  By A3NG7X4APIV649 on 2008-02-13
  Andrew Bridge is a survivor. So many children who found themselves placed into Los Angeles County's MacLaren Hall 'for their own protection' grew up to become troubled adults. MacLaren Hall's intent was good, to provide a safe haven for abused and dependent children who were taken away from their homes for their own protection. Unfortunately, the lines are often blurred in the Los Angeles County child welfare system, and truly bad kids, some of them with violent criminal histories, are mixed in with innocent victims like Andrew Bridge.
  
  MacLaren Hall is now closed, and that part of Hope's Boy is only a small portion of this moving and emotional true-life story. Without revealing the heart of the story, in a way Andrew was lucky, because the safety net today has far more holes than it did back when he was a child caught up in the system.
  
  As deplorable as Andrew's childhod experience was, it's even worse today for children who are taken away from their parents. The eventual closing of MacLaren Hall didn't change the situation for Los Angeles' dependent children. Today a social worker would work more diligently to keep the Bridge family together, because a mentally ill mother is often a better choice than the disinterested foster parent who is only in it for the money. It's also a numbers game. There aren't enough beds in group homes or private foster homes within Los Angeles County to provide for the needs of dependent kids after they're taken away from their parents.
  
  
  
  
• Touching and inspriational
  By ALYC2UW2BL56E on 2008-02-10
  This beautifully written memoir touched me and inspired me. "I'll come back for you, Andy. I promise. I'll come back." That's what Andy's mom promised him when at the age of 4 he was sent to live with his grandmother when his mother was sent to prison. Andy's mom kept her promise. After her release from prison, Andy's mother Hope came back to her then 5 year old son. For the next two years, Hope loved Andy and did her best to care for Andy with very little money, living here and there in seedy Los Angeles neighborhoods until due to her ever-increasing mental illness she could no longer care for him. When Andy was 7, Hope was taken by the authorities and institutionalized, and Andy was thrown into the nightmare of the LA foster care system.
  
  And yet as horrible as Andy's childhood was, Hope's coming back as promised made Andy whole and strong. Empowered, propelled and inspired by his mother's love and devotion, Andrew Bridge was able to persevere through a lonely and harsh childhood in foster care and was able to excel at Harvard Law School and enjoy a successful legal career that he was compelled to leave to devote his time and energy to improving the foster care system, which he did by becoming a leading advocate for children's rights and writing this memoir. This book inspired me to do better as a child and as a mother.
  
  
  
• Required Reading
  By AXCEDEJFQ7LZ8 on 2008-02-17
  I may be Andy Bridge's number one fan right now. I just finished reading the book. Although we lived in different states, in different foster homes, for different reasons our experiences are very similar. It wasn't about the level of care received, it was about the missing intangible ingredients. I cried all the way through the book. It was an honest re-telling of life through Andy's eyes. A beautiful story of real love that understands, without excuse, failure.
  
  I think this should be required reading for teachers, preachers, youth workers and everyone in all levels of government that work with children. Things have changed since I left my foster home 20 years ago, but there are many changes that need to happen.
  
  Andrew, I have told you this before . . I'll say it again a thousand times . . . thank you for all you have done for foster kids. Truly.
  
  
  
  
• Hope's Boy is an inspiration
  By A2KAAZHU5J3OPG on 2008-03-24
  I loved this book. I found it inspiring that Mr. Bridge has overcome adversity to become a successful lawyer despite his childhood. But, what is so special about this book is that Mr. Bridge is so honest with his feelings. He understands and explains to the reader why he reacts to certain situations differently than others would. Mr. Bridge is so brave and honest with his complex emotions. He does not sugar coat his mother's treatment of him. However, he is still protective of her and loves her and tries to understand why she could not raise him.
  
  In my opinion, those that criticize Mr. Bridge because he defends his mother miss the point of his book. His mother is a flawed person who is severely mentally ill. To me, the point of the book is that there should be better options for children whose parents cannot take care of them. The foster care system should be sensitive to children's needs and should not treat them like their situation is their fault. Our system should be empathetic to children's needs and provide supports for children that will be the best solution for them. Mr. Bridge succeeded despite the system that raised him. It is quite telling that instead of trying to understand Mr. Bridges talents and needs for summer employment, he was given a job of picking up poop. Instead of understanding his scholastic needs, it was assumed that he would go to community college if any college at all. This is due to impossible case loads and lacking funds. However, as a society, we must think of ways to do better.
  
  Throughout the book, Mr. Bridge provided numerous examples of how his physical needs were attended to but his emotional needs were ignored. All of us need to feel loved. We will sacrifice our basic needs, shelter and food for the need to be loved and cared for. So while the foster system Mr. Bridge describes may provide our country's most vulnerable children with barely the basic necessities to survive, they do not even attempt to show these children any compassion or empathy much less love. Therefore, in most cases, these children wither as a result. At its worst, the foster system harms the most vulnerable children, treats them as if they are prisoners and abuses them physically and mentally.
  
  Mr. Bridge's novel sheds a much needed light on the foster care system and the needs of its charges. The fact that Mr. Bridge was able to succeed despite his upbringing is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that he is able to open himself up and express the deepest most hurtful events of his life with honesty and courage is amazing. I hope Mr. Bridge's brave account of his life will contribute to a much needed national dialogue about how to help our nation's children to receive the support and guidance that they need.
  
  This book should be required reading for a degree in social work. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the complexities of our nation's foster care systems.
  
  
  
• Heartbreaking yet Inspirational
  By ALU3V2ENEP0FA on 2008-02-06
  "Hope's Boy" is an absolutely beautiful read. As a mother myself, I've already recommended it to every other mother I know.
  
  
• Once you read HOPE'S BOY you will find that many of your ideas have changed
  By A2F6N60Z96CAJI on 2008-03-14
  Andrew Bridge loves his mother. This is a certainty you will carry away after reading this harrowing memoir of a little boy lost --- taken away by the system, then trapped in it, abandoned not by his mother but by departments and laws and social servants. In all, as a child, Andrew had two years with Hope, the mentally ill girl who gave birth to him at age 17 and tried her best to make a home for him in her own nightmarish hand-to-mouth existence.
  
  Once you read HOPE'S BOY you will find that many of your ideas have changed. If you never really thought about foster care, you will now. If you thought foster care was a benign and necessary system, you will challenge that assumption every time the subject comes up. If you thought that parents whose children wind up in foster care are all criminals and monsters, you will have to think again.
  
  The statistics are grim. Referencing the area where he was fostered, Andrew Bridge, now a lawyer who battles for the rights of foster children, states, "Over the last decade, dozens of children have died in Los Angeles foster care and hundreds more have simply disappeared." And "over half a million American children live in foster care. The majority of them never graduate from high school, and overwhelmingly they enter adulthood only semiliterate... thirty to fifty percent of children aging out of foster care are homeless within two years."
  
  After Andrew was separated from Hope (and yes, that is her real name) --- torn physically from her on a city sidewalk as he pulled at her, she screamed and the neighbors looked on --- he was put in a large institution that is the usual first dumping place for such children. Refusing mutely to take off his clothes that first night among so many strangers, he was put in solitary lockup. It was a mistake he never made again.
  
  Andrew must have had some remarkable coping skills, because his first temporary home placement, with a family he calls the Leonards, gradually turned "permanent" until he was released at age 18. Mrs. Leonard was a Baltic refugee who had spent part of her childhood in Dachau and whose perverse treatment of children often seemed to mirror the ugliest aspects of her own early years. Irrationally desperate for money, she took in foster children against her natural children's objections and treated them like unwanted strangers. For birthdays she demanded that the foster child carefully unwrap his or her single present so that the paper and ribbons could be re-used for the next event.
  
  When Hope managed to get to see Andrew, the system, with Mrs. Leonard's eager compliance, cruelly structured the encounters --- confined to one room and strictly timed. Even Mrs. Leonard's natural children and her husband feared her. Yet somehow Andrew stayed while many other children came and went --- girls who had been sexually abused by age seven; boys who, like him, kept their secrets, their past, locked up tight inside. It was a loveless childhood, but it kept a roof over his head and got him through high school.
  
  Andrew wasn't a trusting boy, always convinced that he would be a social pariah if other kids knew his mother wasn't there for him. He managed to override his social fears, however, and achieved many honors in high school, took part-time jobs and determinedly bicycled everywhere so he wasn't dependent on the erratic largesse of the Leonards. He was admitted to Wesleyan College with a full scholarship and later to Harvard Law School.
  
  Between ages 8 and 18, Andrew had a troupe of social workers, but he rarely saw them --- they came to visit but mainly to get reports from Mrs. Leonard. Years later one of those nameless professionals told him that his mother had tried many times, and come so close, to get custody of him. But at the time he was not informed, never given a hint about his mother's continued caring through their separation. This lack of information about children's cases became one of the matters that Andrew sought (successfully) to change once he made the decision to use his law degree to advocate for kids trapped in the system. He is still out there jousting, not just in California but, for example, in Alabama, where in the 1990s he helped investigate a facility in Eufaula where recalcitrant children were locked in a dank basement, and staff abuse (such as inciting fights among the children) was commonplace.
  
  The author emphasizes that every foster child nurses the belief that his mother, her father, will come back, will rescue, will want to pour out the love that normal children take for granted. It is the cherished dream in lives that are generally a bleak landscape of loneliness and emotional emptiness.
  
  Andrew's reunion with Hope just before he left for college is a centerpiece of his story. He writes, "She was not what I had hoped, not what I had rehearsed." She was living in a state mental hospital and worn down by years of stultifying medications designed to keep her from hearing her destructive voices. Yet at the end of that first brief visit, she murmured, "You know, I tried." That is all the affirmation the child Andy and the adult Andrew needed. He will never abandon his mother or blame her for her failures, and will continue to fight for the rights of children who, like him, live in silent, desperate hope.
  
  --- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott
  
  
• Has a victim's point of view
  By A2XPY8JYOKBIWS on 2008-03-24
  This is a good book for those who want a better understanding of how kids perceive changes in family structure whether through death, divorce, or being removed by child protective services. I've been a foster parent for the past year, and ordered this book to try to gain a foster child's perspective. While the author's experiences are sad, they were not horrific nor seriously debilitating. As do most children who experience the destruction of their family, he has, and will always have a victim's viewpoint for every event. He has gone on to work hard trying to make positive changes in the focter care systems across the country through advocacy and the courts, with some success. I applaud his efforts. The saddest aspect of this story is how events shape us, and how we see the world around us forever.
  
  Dave in Texas
  
  
• There is hope for Hope's boy
  By ACH3XM6K1M4AK on 2008-04-11
  I had heard about this book in People magazine. I also noted that it was recently a best seller. That is why that I wanted to read it. It is a true story of a child in foster care seemingly raised without love. Andrew, the main character, is taken away from his mentally ill Mother by Social Services, and she never gets him back (the author does not mention what happens regarding why). Andrew still manages to suceed, going to college in New England, and then attending Harvard law school. It is heartwrenching to read.
  To me, the story raises more questions than answers. What exactly drove Andrew to be as sucessful in school as he was, despite an unloving foster family that did not accept him? He mentions few friendships as he was growing up, and it is implied that the reason this was is that he was ashamed of his past and his foster family. It makes me wonder what his life is like now. Is he able to make friends? Is he involved with a signifigant other? Or does he have issues with maintaining friendships and a main squeeze due to his childhood? Does he have issues with the fact brought out in his book that his Grandmother and his Mother both had signifigant battles with mental illness (his Mothers is still ongoing), and that he is at risk for developing the same mental illness that runs in his family? I do not know if that is revelant to the review or not, but I do have to add this, as I kept asking these questions in my head as I kept reading the book.
  I read the book and was moved by it, but I had a hard time liking the book, due to its depressing subject matter. As mentioned above, I want to know what Hope's boy is like as an adult now, and I do hope that Andrew Bridge will write a sequel.
  
  
• Moving and Insightful Book!
  By AFA1MO6YZ9MT2 on 2008-02-17
  As someone who spent time as well as advocated for my younger brothers and sisters in the foster care system, I found this book very moving. Andrew's continued support for children lost in this system is truly inspiring!
  
  
• So sad
  By A161NARHB8UOB5 on 2008-02-09
  I have read the book and find it disturbing. This author's mother badly traumatized her son in the short two years she had him with her. The experiences he relates in the foster home seem to be tainted by his early experiences and his mother's embedded beliefs of paranoia and need to keep him alienated from anyone but her.
  
  Also the book seems to be poorly edited with inconsistencies and quite a few grammatical and spelling errors.
  
  
  
• Excellent Book
  By A398YH7WDXI6SN on 2008-02-29
  This is a must read for foster parents or people contemplating becoming foster parents. Mr. Bridges insight into the foster care system as it was in the 1970's and today shows how much more work needs to be done to fix a severly broken agency within our government. I applaud Mr. Bridge for his courage in not only rising above so many obstacles but also his honest portrayal of a system in need of more good people to take on the cause of repairing a much overlooked segment of our population. No child should have to be subjected to the neglect he endured even while in foster care.
  
  
• inspiring
  By A3TI7BGQLQ1OIE on 2008-03-01
  no book has moved me more in years. the author exposes the foster care system better than it ever has been before. there is a sense that the author has only revealed pieces of his experience with his foster family, but i don't think that was the point. I imagine out of respect he just exposed the actions that affected his experience and that would resonate with the reader. the author is a real hero. what a voice he is for the system.
  
  
• Hope's Boy
  By A23O0IMP63P6E2 on 2008-03-04
  A great story....it tells us what foster children went through during their young lives. Andrew Bridge tells his story very well.
  
  
• Hopes Boy - A strong call to action! - a must read
  By A2YDUXTW75J8GT on 2008-03-31
  Hopes Boy shows us the nice side of Foster Care being able to stay in 1 home throughout his childhood even though he received very little nurturing - how did he become what he is today? Shows Andrew was born for a greater good so his childhood was not something to be victimized by. He has done so much for other foster kids and this book is a great read that does not go too deep into the worst of foster care but definitely gives you a glimpse and creates awareness for this ever growing epidemic. Andrew is a true inspiration for others who feel trapped or victimized by their past - this book is definite must read for people who need to be inspired to change and make a difference in the lives of others.
  
  
• A tribute to the power of hope and the courage to overcome loss against all odds!
  By AT2RTUZLE8VNY on 2008-03-12
  "Hope's Boy"- A memoir written by Andrew Bridge made me cry.
  
  Talk about making lemonade out of lemons! This young man accomplishes
  
  the seemingly impossible with the courage and grace of a champion. None
  
  of us chooses our parents - but rarely does life dole out the circumstances and conditions that are handed to Andy. Imagine being six years old living with a mother who is loving but definitely showing signs
  of mental illness. Hope(his mother) hears voices and has frequent breakdowns on the street. She is a victim of a broken home (herself) and of poverty, facing life on the streets of Hollywood and North Hollywood at the age of 22 with a young boy in tow.
  
  The young mother tries to get a job and is even helped by a few good samaritans but eventually she is overcome by the stress and circumstances
  of being mentally ill with all that that implies. I am happy when the county takes Andy from his mother, but that happiness quickly turns to sadness and disbelief when he encounters the horrors at MCLaren Hall and the sadistic treatment from his foster mother.(herself a child of the holocaust.)
  
  Being innately bright and with a will to survive and keep his "hope"
  
  alive (of being reunited with his mother or grandmother), Andy learns how to keep out of trouble by being invisible and not making waves. He does what he is told and eventually finds some acceptance and "normalcy" by being an
  academic achiever. None of this brings him what he longs for and needs more than anything else in this world,the unconditional love of a caring human being. While the love being offered to him by his mother was by no means perfect he innately knows that it was the "real thing". No one can or will provide him with this love. Not his social workers, who rarely or never ask how he is being treated , not his foster-siblings who barely tolerate their mother's desire for taking in homeless children, not his teachers who although impressed with his mind do not give more than the prefunctory grades and accolades and not even the friendship usually shared with classmates and friends. He loses his childhood but eventually
  emerges as a strong accomplished man eager to help other children like him deal with the weaknessess, inconsistencies and abuses of the institutionalized and foster-care children of this nation. Congratulations Andy and I pray that through this book you may someday find your true brother Jason whom I can tell you truly have learned to love. May God bless you!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• heartbreaker
  By A1M99DBQQ3ELOI on 2008-03-28
  I could not put this book down. I cried through many of the pages, to think there are children all over this country in these or worse situations. Made me wish I were not too old to be a foster parent. How sad our system does not have better help for mothers and children caught in the trap of poverty and confusion. The only "Hope" in all this is that this little boy, came out of this and overcame it all to write this book. I am passing this book along to a Child Psychologist friend.
  
  How can we make changes, how can we help, how can we let this go on?
  
  
• Very Moving
  By A17LEELKGRXF0Q on 2008-04-07
  As a teacher Hope's Boy reminded me of one of the reasons I went into teaching. To create a safe haven for all my students, a place where they are valued, cared about and where they can achieve success. This book should be required for all people who work with children. What a wonderful memoir and love story.
  
  
• Fans of Nancy Grace will love this book
  By A3T9UGYTI4DRT9 on 2008-04-27
  *several spoilers*
  
  "Hope's Boy" is a memoir of a child who was taken away from his paranoid schizophrenic, self-injurious mother and put into foster care for ten years. He went to college and ended up getting a full ride to Harvard Law and is now a lawyer working for children's rights. Sounds promising, but personally I couldn't stomach the author's complete and utter lack of perspective. It's baffling--he obviously recognizes the numerous (and dangerous) faults of his mother, but spends the entire book mooning for her (even though she makes no effort at even keeping in touch with him) and alienating himself from those who are left to pick up the pieces.
  
  First of all, the whole point of his story is that too many kids are taken away from their parents when they shouldn't be (and that's his professional stance as a children's-rights lawyer, too). Yet his mother was a mentally ill burglar who shacked up with abusive guys, cut herself, got into fistucuffs with police, didn't have him enrolled in school, didn't have a job, moved from place to place mooching off whomever she could for a place to stay, etc. I mean, I'd like to know what he considers an UNFIT parent. Once he was put into a foster family she visited him infrequently for the first couple years and then disappeared and didn't contact him for SEVEN YEARS. He was in the same foster family for ten years and all he does through the entire novel is make snarky comments about how fat they were, how tacky their clothes were, how cheap they lived, etc. etc. It's just nauseating. It would be nice if he could look back with some perspective and see that A) to any moron, it's obvious his mother was not fit to raise him B) his poor foster family that kept him for ten years obviously cared about him--he was raised alongside their kids, whom are described as being treated the exact same as he was--they went to all his school functions and performances and parent-teacher conferences and he makes a point in several places of talking about how proud they were of him--and all he felt for them was at best indifference. They may not have been the Best Parents in the World (tm), especially in terms of physical and emotional affection, but they did what his mother didn't have the responsibility to do. As I read this book I just kept wondering if that family who had treated him as one of their own was alive to read this book and how heartbroken they must have felt at finding out the way he really felt about them for all those years.
  
  It is sad how he basically alienates himself from others and doesn't make friends with any of his foster siblings or the other kids at school and was basically terrified that kids would find out he was a foster kid. And it's *especially* sad to see him spend the entire book romanticizing the one person who "really" wanted him, the one to whom he belonged--and to see a fragile, innocent child coveting love and belonging so much--but I don't think he realizes how bad it "could have" been in the foster system and should maybe use his academic clout and "street cred" to improve funding or screening processes for families or sealing the cracks in the system rather than working to keep kids in dangerous situations.
  
  I'll admit, maybe I'm missing something, because truth be told, I gave up about 3/4 of the way through the book. Maybe he piles it all on at the end, but I just couldn't stomach any more of his underhanded blows to the Leonard family and romanticizing of his pathetic mother to find out. Lovers of sensationalism/sadistic folks who just want to read a sob story will really dig this book. To those who are hoping for some depth, reflection, perspective, and a wealth of wisdom well-gained from a hard-knock life, skip this one.
  
  
• Hope despite the odds
  By A1K5H33ABTXW5F on 2008-05-05
  Hope's Boy is a provocative and evocative true account of a boy literally torn from his mentally ill and desperately poor mother and forced into the mostly uncaring, sadly disorganized foster care system in California. There are probably no good foster care systems so Andrew Bridge's story is likely representative of the whole, a system that operates by coldly delivering children into the homes of strangers paid well to provide the necessities but none of the love and understanding the children forever seek. And just as coldly, with no explanation, moving them from one uncaring home to another, with very little effort towards rehabilitating the parents and reuniting the severed families. Andrew was one of the lucky ones in that he wasn't subjected to physical abuse and his foster parents, despite their efforts otherwise, seemed to care somewhat for his well-being and definitely his education. Unlike their own three biological children, who never could be bothered with Andrew (nor were they encouraged to), he alone excelled academically and went on to attend an excellent college and then Harvard Law School.
  
  Andrew was one of the lucky ones also because he never forgot that his mother and his grandmother loved him, thought about him, wrote and visited (though his mother's inappropriate behavior continued to expose the depravity of her illness) -- and that love was sufficient to sustain him through his loneliness. He wrote a beautiful book, one that will stay with me for a long time, but it is not perfect. There is much well-written detail of his years in the foster care system and his continual efforts to keep his real life secret from those who passed through his life, but the years after he was emancipated were given almost no attention. There was one foster child he never forgot about but we never find out why. He never mentions anything about romances, his college and law school years, and begins and end his memoir with a single legal case, a foster care one, he is involved with after he becomes a practicing attorney. When the book ends, he is working in public interest law in California, advocating for other children whose lives are destined to be lost through institutional care, but the fly-leaf states that he is now living in New York City. What he does now and what led him to the east coast are unmentioned. His current relationship with the mother whose love never left him is similarly absent.
  
  
• Hope's mental health care system?!?!%@!!!
  By A18G1O9QW682V0 on 2008-05-08
  Excellent! This book gives us a first hand view into our nation's troubled foster care system and how the human spirit can survive despite the nasty and neglectful behavior of its cruel players (beaurocrats and foster parents in it for the money). This book also shows us how our mental health care system is failing miserably to serve impoverished women in this country. Schizophrenia, depression and domestic violence should be what you are paying attention to, not which celebrity is getting their pictures taken today. Come on social workers and the rest of America - Let's get it together!!!!!!!!!
  
  
• Unforgettable
  By A1ZBB6QLRPOG2Z on 2008-03-20
  I saw this review in People magazine and it intrigued me. I bought the audio CD and have been hooked. I am now on the 9th CD and am in awe of Andy. Shame on LA County and the way they treated foster kids, Kudos to Andy and the way he has prevailed - his story is remarkable. I see Andrew Bridge speaks at various functions and I will make it a point to find and see him. And I'd love to find "Mrs. Leonard" and give her a piece of my mind. What a hateful woman. God bless Andy in all his future endeavors, and the work he has done for children in need.
  
  
• Praise for Hope's Boy
  By A3GLGALDCC64S0 on 2008-03-27
  I loved this book. Not horror filled,like a "Boy Called It", but heart wrenching just the same. The passages where he describes his love for his mother and hers for him were very touching. The story was very believable and the emotions were also. This is a person I would like to know.
  
  

• Her Last Death: A Memoir
• Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
• Manic: A Memoir
• Three Little Words: A Memoir
• Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines