I've just finished reading "The Boy in the Moon" ... wow, Ian Brown really writes a mean sentence!  I watch him on T.V.O. introducing The Human Edge and The View from Here and have always admired his brutal honesty and no-nonsense talk.  That's exactly how he writes about his profoundly disabled son, Walker, in this book.  From the first 10 pages in which Brown describes the incredibly complex and frustrating steps he must go through to get his boy a drink of warm milk and change his diaper during the night, he has you hooked.  You are with him ... you feel his frustrations, his worries, his joys, his fatigue, and also his incredible love for this child.

But, this is not simply a father/son love story.  The sub-title is "A Father's Search for his Disabled Son", and that is the real theme of the book.  Brown's search for the person inside, the boy behind the crying, the hitting, the feeding tube and the diapers that is his son. He asks, "Are you there Walker?  Do you know me? What is going on in your mind?"   And, we anguish with him as he watches constantly for signs beyond the simple clicks that father and son have developed as a type of communication.  Ian Brown allows us into his own mind, into his thoughts, feelings and fears ... his honesty is at times disarming, but I found I could not stop reading, even through my tears.

An extraordinary book, it opens a small window into daily living with a profoundly disabled child, and I guarantee it will make you reflect, weep, engage ... and, yes, even cheer.

Paula Todd  wrote an excellent review of this book in the 'Globe and Mail' and summed it up perfectly.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-the-boy-in-the-moon-by-ian-brown/article1301478/