Special educator Joanne De Simone bears all in this raw and transformative memoir that captures how she used lessons of modern dance in her journey through motherhood with two children with disabilities. When the pediatrician places the measuring tape around her infant's head and notes, "His head is a little small," Joanne knows that motherhood won't be as she had dreamt. Even as a special educator, Joanne isn't prepared to raise a child with a life-limiting brain malformation. Nor is she ready for the compounded pain and alienation that comes when her second son is diagnosed with autism. But the struggle to balance her sons' medical and educational challenges drives Joanne to reconnect with the lessons she learned as a modern dancer--and there she finds enlightenment. Inspired by her experience performing José Limón's There Is a Time, based on Ecclesiastes 3, each chapter of Fall and Recovery details a dance lesson and the dichotomy of parenting children with disabilities. Over time, Joanne discovers that surviving motherhood isn't a matter of strength, bravery, or faith. It's a matter of linking your past experiences and creating your own purpose. It's realizing that we live simultaneously in love and grief. In the end, dance teaches Joanne not only how to move freely through pain but also how to fall and recover.

Fall and Recovery: Raising Children with Disabilities through Lessons Learned in Dance

Biographies & Memoirs

De Simone, Joanne

Arts & Literature

She Writes Press

From award-winning writer Joanne de Simone, Songs from Under the El is a love letter to her family-a nostalgic look at her heritage that began at Ellis Island, spanning almost a century. Her memoir is filled with anecdotes about who came before, with stories about life in the early to mid 1900s, and with the hope that all who follow in this tapestry of laughter and tears will come to cherish it as much as its creator.

Songs From Under The El: Memories of Life in the Dark

Community & Culture

Moonlight Garden Publications

The Peculiar Plight of Milicent Wryght

Milicent Wryght marries the man of her dreams, but in short order, her uptown Manhattan life sours as she becomes jealous of her hubby's hobby of training and caring for homing pigeons--and his apparent affection for them. Enraged by what she perceives as his neglect, a scorned Milicent, in a foolishly reckless act of revenge, simultaneously loses her husband and her good life. In an odd twist of Karmic events, she is propelled into a very different life and a most peculiar plight in the Big Apple.

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Castle Garden Publications

INSIDE OUT YOGA is illustrated with dynamic yoga poses and filled with thought-provoking inspirational messages and journal pages to chart personal reflections for a strong and healthy mind, body, and spirit.

Inside Out Yoga

K, Sandra

Reference

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Books by De Simone, Joanne