Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite

Reflections In the Key of Life is an autobiographical work focused on and penned by trumpeter Steve Madaio, along with the assistance of Tad Sisler. Recording his life as a musician through the turbulent social changes of the 1960s, through pivotal events such as Woodstock and his work with plenty of famous faces, this unique portrait gives us insight into the figures who work alongside those stars on whom we so often shine the spotlight. Here, Steve Madaio’s influence on popular music is unveiled and appreciated in the context of the shifting sands of the music industry, teaching important lessons about talent, hard work, opportunity and life in general.

I really enjoyed getting to know Steve Madaio through this intimate portrait of his life and work. Focusing heavily on the music, it’s easy to see how passionate a musician Steve was throughout his varied and exciting career. There is plenty of appeal in this work for aficionados - for example, the tales of how he worked with John Lennon and the Rolling Stones - giving us a special insight into the music industry and exciting artists that we know from afar. Steve’s experience is really brought to life, however, by his insightful reflections on the big and small moments that shaped him throughout his career, and it’s here that we find the real golden nuggets of empathy, wisdom, and inspiration in the work. Overall, Reflections In the Key of Life is an accomplished work by Steve Madaio and Tad Sisler which music fans are sure to love.

Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite

Shadow Kid: Based on Real Life Events by Jennifer Vaughn is a biography that follows the life of eight-year-old Gavin Scott as he grows up in very painful circumstances, finding himself pulled away from a familiar and happy environment in New York and to a challenging life in New Hampshire. He will learn to live with bullies and to outsmart them. The narrative weaves on, taking the protagonist through painful experiences, getting punished for a crime he never committed, earning respect in the cockpit, becoming part of biker gangs and knowing depression from close quarters, to Hollywood and starting a family. But when he believes to have found the one thing that can give him fulfillment, his past begins to haunt him.

Shadow Kid: Based on Real Life Events is beautifully written and the opening captures the stream of consciousness of observant thoughts that are at the heart of this story. “Sure, secrets on their own merit won't kill you and they're powerless to bother anyone else either, so long as they stay where you left them: In their own room inside their own house. It's only when the other occupants you’ve allowed in have rummaged through the rooms and kicked over the furniture, that our darkest secrets find a sliver of light, and the pain—that atrocious rot that ate away at your core—is released again.” The character development is deft, the plot ingeniously imagined, and the conflict real. I was mostly interested in the internal conflict and the author allows readers to experience it by putting them into the mind of the protagonist. This is a story that features grit, adventure, and the struggle to make sense of life against the odds. Jennifer Vaughn infuses the writing with realism and humanity, crafting characters that belong here.

Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite

Shackled: A Journey From Political Imprisonment to Freedom by Adam Siddiq is the true story of Khaled Siddiq, a heartbreaking story of injustice and betrayal and a sinister plan to eliminate an entire family. Khaled is just six when his entire family and extended family are betrayed, his father exiled and his uncles executed. His family used to be favored by the King of Afghanistan, but now everything has changed with the new regime. This family of men who stood by the king ends up in a dungeon in one of the forgotten corners of Kabul. Follow this gritty tale of hardship, of painful loss, and hope. Young Khaled makes the best use of his time and studies, learning five different languages and philosophy. When this family is finally released, life will never be the way it once was and it is difficult to walk any street without feeling as though they were being followed. And can Khaled be reunited with his father?

This story of grit and a young man’s struggle to survive against impossible odds is beautifully told. I have read a few books from authors from Afghanistan — including The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini — and there is always this surprising blend of insight and humanity that emerges from the ashes, and Shackled handles this aspect of the story beautifully. The narrative is smooth and the setting comes out clearly, with copious references to the culture and the traditional language of the protagonist. Readers will understand what key moments and places are called in the protagonist’s language. This masterful handling of setting gives authenticity to the story and reinforces the realism in the narrative. Shackled: A Journey From Political Imprisonment to Freedom is deeply moving, infused with deep values of humanity, a tale of hope and resilience. It is an incredible journey to freedom.

Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite

Goodbye to Italia by Marisa Parker is an enchanting story that takes the reader on a journey back in time and into the lives of her parents. The cover of this biography is beautiful and hints at the rich history inside the pages. I loved the fact that the author took time to talk to her parents, memorize their words, and made their love story eternal. She takes readers on a journey along with the two main characters as they come of age in two very different, yet very dangerous places that are plagued by the effects of WWII.

This is the story of Mariolina Martore and Eugenio Piergiovanni. When our story begins, Mariolina is 6 years old and Eugenio is 17 years old. While Mariolina is living with her mother and grandmother in war ravaged Torino, Italy among disease, hunger and the devastation of the war, Eugenio is fighting as a teenage soldier. He is captured and taken to a prisoner of war camp where he spends 6 years, barely surviving by living through the dry humor he creates in his diaries. Years go by and Mariolina and Eugenio meet at a more peaceful time, yet neither of them is the same. We are taken through a beautiful journey of self-discovery, love, acceptance and courage as we read about how these two find each other, their love and themselves.

Sweet, endearing, heartwarming, emotional and simply lovely, this book is too interesting to put down. The double POV makes the story interesting and ensures that the reader keeps on reading. Eugenio’s years in the POW camp and Mariolina’s journey from an innocent 6-year-old to a bold and confident young woman speaks to the reader. I simply don’t have enough words to explain the feeling this story evoked in me. So good and simply beautiful!

Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers' Favorite

Alternatives to a Frozen Mouse: Book One by AJ Mouse is a memoir written by someone with DID or Disassociate Identity Disorder, or what used to known as Multiple Personality Disorder or Split Personality, and is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Since the book is written by a woman who suffers from DID, obviously the book is written from multiple perspectives and is literally written in the voice of two of the many personalities existing in one body. The book starts off simply with an introduction by Jade and Anne and, between the two of them, they introduce us to the several other personalities, including someone they call the Mouse, who is still a small, frightened, shy young girl dealing with the trauma of early life abuse. The book details what it is like to live with this disorder or mental illness, what day to day life is like, how the personalities interact and co-exist with each other, and how someone with this disorder manages to deal with the external world.

Alternatives to a Frozen Mouse is a fascinating read. I have read a few books on Disassociate Identity Disorder before, but since the disorder is fairly rare and little understood, I welcomed the opportunity to read a memoir about this. AJ Mouse writes in a genuine, heartfelt manner that cannot fail to evoke sympathy as well as respect. The story of abuse in the past, which is what triggers this disorder and allows the personality to “split,” is tragic and difficult to read about. I hope a book like this goes a long way towards making people understand that those who suffer from this disorder are not dangerous or crazy or bad, but instead are just human beings with a mental illness who deserve compassion and acceptance. The writing style is very engaging and also humorous at times, and so the book is certainly not heavy all the time. This book is a must-read for everyone!

Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite

From Shoeshine to Star Wars: The Chronicles of Walt Jourdan by Walt and Lee Jourdan is a compelling memoir that chronicles the life of father and son as they overcome obstacles and face the challenges that only a migrant trying to create meaning in life in the US can face. Set against the backdrop of a turbulent historical moment, characterized by the Great Depression, this story is one of hope and a testament of how a man and his son could change their stars and determine their destinies. Readers will be surprised with their response to hardship, their overall perception of life, and success born of a resilient spirit. It is inspiring to watch little Walt shine a shoe here and sell a magazine there just to contribute to the welfare of the family.

One of the inspiring things about this book is the powerful lesson that we can choose how we respond to situations in life. Instead of feeling defeated and blaming others for their predicaments, both father and son took their fate into their hands and went out to find solutions for their problems. No wonder Big Walt quit school and started his numerous businesses. Readers are introduced to the difficulties faced by most immigrants trying to raise families in the US. The writing is crisp and beautiful and the voice comes out in a warm and powerful way. Most of the book is written from the point of view of the son. From Shoeshine to Star Wars: The Chronicles of Walt Jourdan is both engaging and inspirational, a story I’d love to see on screen.

Reviewed by Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite

As a victim of child abuse myself, I have a pretty thick skin when I read stories similar to my own. But Where Children Run by Karen Emilson shook me to my core with its depiction of violence against children, especially since it is a true story. There were times this tough-skinned reviewer audibly winced and had to put the book down to catch her breath as these young children ran for their lives into the freezing bushes or lakes during Manitoba winters to avoid yet another brutal beating by their Polish stepfather, Boleslaw Domko. The man was, as we learn at the end of the book, schizophrenic, as well as paranoid, selfish, insanely jealous and childish. His wife, Caroline, a Catholic turned Jehovah's Witness, was unable to stand up to him for her children or herself. And compounding her inability to act were the dictates of her religion.

Events are seen primarily through the eyes of the twins, David and Dennis, who suffer the bulk of the horrific abuse at Domko's hands. Why does he hate these children so much? Because they are not his own. His treatment of them is in sharp contrast to how he treats the children Caroline bears him. Mind you, in one of his rages, he even throws his natural baby daughter into a wall. The result is blindness. While he regrets that and treats her with love as she grows, he has no remorse in starving the other children, working them mercilessly from a very young age on their farm, throwing pitchforks and shooting at them with the intention of killing them.

These children are terrorized for over 12 years. How they survive and live to tell the tale through the help of kindly neighbours, a persistent social worker, and eventually through the author, Karen Emilson, is a marvel. But above all it's a testament to the strength of the human spirit, of our instincts for survival. Readers will agonize for the twins and their older and younger siblings; they will be infuriated by the inability of law enforcement to protect the children from Domko; they will be disgusted by religious beliefs that allow such evil abuse to continue because the man is the head of the household; and they will shake their heads in disbelief at how Domko fools other adults into believing that the children are the bad ones in this family and he is only doing his fatherly duties in disciplining them.

Where Children Run by Karen Emilson is eye-opening, revolting, disturbing and, sadly, true. David and Dennis agreed as teens if they survived their ordeals, they would one day tell their story. Where Children Run is their story. But it's unfortunately, the story of thousands of other abused children worldwide. Read it ... if you dare and care.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Abe-vs-Adolf: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Abe Peck is a non-fiction biography written by Maya Ross. Abe grew up in Szadek, Poland; a town that had a thriving and healthy Jewish community living within it before the Second World War. He was 90 at the time this book was written, and he’s now the only living Jewish survivor from his home town. Abe’s father owned a kosher restaurant, and his mother had been to college in Belgium and was a teacher, and the family kept up with current events through the international papers they’d read each day. While the climate of intolerance was nowhere near as intense -- and deadly -- as would occur under Hitler’s occupation of Poland, Jews in Szadek had always been aware of the antisemitic feelings prevalent among the non-Jewish community. The Piks and their peers grew ever more concerned as they read of Hitler’s ascent to power, and they couldn’t help but notice that the climate of hatred and intolerance was growing ever more palpable in their own community. When Abe was 15 years old, he and his father were herded along with 48 other men to a work camp. They left behind Abe’s mother, sister and relatives, who were then living in the close confines of the two-block designated Jewish ghetto that was bordered with barbed wire. They would never see their loved ones again, and Abe would spend the next five years of his life fighting to survive in nine concentration camps, several death marches, and years laboring in a coal mine.

Maya Ross’s non-fiction biography, Abe-vs-Adolf: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Abe Peck, is a stunning work. While I’ve been privileged to read a number of compelling and powerful survivors' stories in the past, I was not prepared for the intensity and brutal honesty I found within these pages. Abe’s heroism in simply surviving to tell his tale has me at a loss for words. I spent a day reading his story, looking at the faces of his family, the thousands of inmates, and piles of the dead, and the enormity of Hitler’s final solution was hammered home in a way that it hadn’t been before. Those are images I will live with for the rest of my life, I’m quite sure of it -- images that are disturbing, troubling and yet, each is a voice from the past that Ross and Peck have resurrected to speak once again. When Ross met Abe for the first time, she marvelled at his take on the tattoo that still is visible on his arm. Abe saw those numbers as a good thing. They meant he survived. Reading his story is tragic, harrowing and ultimately inspirational. In Maya Ross’s non-fiction biography, Abe-vs-Adolf: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Abe Peck, Mr. Peck speaks for all those Jews who did not survive the Holocaust, and he does so brilliantly and with grave eloquence. This biography is most highly recommended.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Survival: Transforming Childhood Trauma: 8 Steps to Reclaiming Your Life is a nonfiction, motivational self-help book written by David Brady. Brady’s childhood was, to all intents and purposes, an idyllic one. The family lived in a lovely home in Timmins, Ontario, where evergreen trees scented the air with their fragrance, and the mining which had given the town its start was still flourishing in the 1950s when Brady was growing up there. Unknown to his friends at the bar, his acquaintances and his co-workers, Brady’s father’s alcoholism was making his family’s life a continuing hell. Jack was physically and emotionally abusive to them, and, at one point, had pointed a shotgun at the author and his mom and continued pulling the trigger until Brady’s older brother intervened. The bright side to Brady’s precarious childhood was those summers spent with his grandparents on their farm near Cobalt, Ontario, where he played at being Tom Sawyer in his grandmother’s washtub and would float along and dream in the small stream on the farm’s property. That farm inspired him to embrace reading, beginning with Twain’s works and expanding outward to Hardy Boys mysteries and beyond.

He and his mom did escape the dangers of living with his unstable and abusive dad, exchanging the countryside for the excitement of Toronto, and Brady found no shortage of friends and fun as he grew to be a young man, but something was always wrong. Indefinable to one who had had no formal training in psychology, Brady’s experiences growing up in fear had left a profound and continuing legacy upon his emotional well-being, one that would extend for decades until he was able to identify and take steps toward healing from the past. Brady shares his experiences as he healed, and he introduces the eight steps that helped him reclaim his life. He did so in the hope it would help other adult sufferers of childhood trauma realize that they too could reclaim the full rich lives they were missing due to those unaddressed issues from the past.

David Brady’s book is an illuminating and compelling work that will have readers with unaddressed childhood trauma sitting up and paying attention. It will help those with traumatized people in their lives to finally understand what’s going on. I particularly enjoyed reading the first part, which is essentially the author’s memoir of his early years. While horrified at the treatment he and his family members silently suffered at the hands of Jack Brady, the author’s accounts of time spent at the farm, outdoors and, later on, with his friends as a teenager are beautifully written and a joy to read. I was also fascinated by his stories about his film-making, and I remember quite well how much I enjoyed watching The Grey Fox when it hit the movie theaters. His accounts of crashing and burning, of frantic, fear-filled nights wondering about the millions he owed creditors, and the slowly dawning realization that he needed help are eloquently and fearlessly shared with his reader. The eight steps he used to reclaim his life are clearly set out and the benefits he’s gained from his Master Mind groups are compelling indeed. Survival: Transforming Childhood Trauma addresses a continuing tragedy as childhood trauma survivors often live half-lives, never realizing their full potential, and it offers easily accessible steps to help those affected begin their own healing processes. It’s most highly recommended.

Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite

In the Service of Community an Honored Elder: The Honorable Judge Perry Brooks Jackson by Anita P. Jackson Ph.D. is a well written biography about a person who was well respected in the Cleveland and Cuyahoga County Community. Judge Perry Jackson set precedents in the legal field and his service to the community, his ability to relate to people from all strata of society, and his fairness and knowledge in handling difficult situations are commendable. His dedication to and involvement in civic organizations helped make the community a better place to live in. The book chronicles the remarkable things he did as a professional, and the challenges he faced during his life.

The book is insightful and throws light on the life and achievement of a great person in a humble way. Readers get to know more about the person, his family, his life, his education, and everything that made him the person he was. Being the first African-American judge in Ohio, his challenges and achievements were noteworthy. Though he faced racial discrimination while growing up, Judge Perry Jackson was concerned about the unfairness shown to African-Americans. The black and white pictures shared in the book help readers relate to the events and the person.

I would recommend this book to youngsters as it will definitely motivate them to rise above the problems they face in life and to make the best use of what they have. The book is well written and well expressed and takes readers down Memory Lane to an era when racial discrimination existed.