In painstaking detail, Abeel recounts her life, from kindergarten through college, with a learning disability that compromises her ability to learn skills based on sequential processing--especially math, spelling, and grammar. She writes frankly about her mental and emotional struggles to cope; while she looked like a normal child, she was unable to tell time, count change, or remember her locker combination. Her narrative is interjected with first-person remembrances of painful incidents that left a vivid imprint on her self-worth. After her disability was diagnosed, halfway through her story when she was in seventh grade, the school system provided both special and gifted classes that helped her. But still aching over missed social opportunities and suffering from panic attacks, she turned to writing, which became her life preserver. Upon college graduation, Abeel finally accepted that being learning disabled wasn't her fault. Abeel's raw emotional anguish, though certainly understandable, overwhelms the story, making it difficult to pinpoint an audience. Perhaps readers who have their own intimate knowledge of how learning disabilities derail life will be the most appreciative audience.

With a sharp eye for detail, Abeel narrates her life with dyscalculia, a learning disability that prevents her from telling time, doing basic addition, or counting change. The unrelieved use of first-person indicative, without more than a line or two of dialogue, grows a little claustrophobic, but Abeel's emotional journey will inspire both those with learning disabilities and those seeking to understand them.

Evocative, elegant prose tells the true, first-person story of Samantha's difficult childhood navigating a learning disability. Sam has dyscalculia, which severely hinders her ability to understand sequential processing. Academic skills affected include math, spelling, and grammar; other inabilities are telling time, understanding how hours pass, counting money, and dialing the phone. As a child, Sam disguises both her inability to function like other children as well as her shame and fear about it. The eventual diagnosis of "learning disabled" is a godsend, but still leaves many challenges. At age 15, Sam publishes a group-project book of her own original poems ( Reach for the Moon ), and although high school and college are massive challenges, she finishes both. Crippling social anxiety turns out to be caused not just by the learning disability, but also by depression. Medication brings some long-needed relief. Educational and beautifully written, perfectly demonstrating how learning disabilities can coexist with real talent. (Memoir. YA)

Abeel's charged autobiography about growing up both learning-disabled and gifted may be better suited for parents and teachers than children. Offering an intimate documentary, the author analyzes each stage of her life from an adult perspective, periodically recreating significant moments in her development—and using adult language to do so: "There was no truer feeling of joy or of all-consuming passion than when I had an opportunity to use my imagination in creative play." She examines her painful childhood, when she felt isolated from her peers and was fraught with anxieties about her inability to measure time and distance ("I feel so far away from everyone, removed, alone in my ignorance. I am terrified there is something really wrong with me," Abeel writes of sitting through a fourth grade math class). The author evokes the rush of relief she felt when, at age 13, she was finally diagnosed with dyscalculia. She recounts the encouragement she received to develop her talent as a writer, and traces her growing fame after her first book, <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Reach for the Moon, was published at age 15. Despite her triumphs, however, Abeel frankly admits that some obstacles in her path will never go away. Her memoir, expressing both her talents and her intense frustration at not being able to perform everyday tasks like telling time and making change, conjures a haunting, intriguing portrait of a lonely outsider using creative outlets to earn acceptance from herself and others. Ages 12-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Nov.)

Gr 9 Up-Abeel writes of her torturous year in seventh grade when she was diagnosed with a learning disability. Having been a gifted, creative preschooler, she was not prepared for the realization, in second grade, that she could not do many of the tasks that her classmates could accomplish with ease. By seventh grade, her feelings of insecurity had reached an all-time high, and she began to experience anxiety attacks over everything from having to remember her locker combination to managing her schoolwork to staying overnight at a friend's. When she was finally diagnosed with dyscalculia, she and her family felt relief. At least now there was a name for her difficulties and strategies she could employ. This account is an interesting mix of factual information and memories. Abeel relates her experiences with detached clarity, but each situation is followed by the thoughts and feelings that finally forced her to face her differences. Occasionally, her well-phrased prose slips into clich , and when she lists the math skills that she could not perform she becomes rather pedantic. While this book is not likely to be of great interest to casual readers, those with similar learning issues will identify strongly with the author's trials and triumphs. Pair this title with Abeel's book of poetry, Reach for the Moon (Scholastic, 2001), to inspire young people with learning disabilities and to educate others.-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.