Stuck in Neutral

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Summary: Stuck in Nuetral
Review: This book was wonderful. It is about a 14 year old boy who has cerebral palsy and cannot control most, if not all of his body. This book teaches kids(and adults) about the birth desiese,C.P. that affects mostly your muscle control. In this case, Shawn(the main charecter) is affected badly. The story talks about the life that Shawn and his family need to deal with. IT also teaches that kids that have desieses, such as this one, can think for themselves and feel pain and grief just like you and me.
This book meant a lot to me beacuse my older brother has C.P. Of course (luckily) he was not affected as much. If you like drama and want to teach your children or students about desieses and that people that have them have feelings, then you should definetly buy or read this book.

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Summary: Fabulous
Review: Great Young Adult novel that asks important questions about existence and euthanasia. Highly recommended.

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Summary: The greatest book ever
Review: Have you ever felt that sometimes you wanted to escape yourself and become someone else? If you have than Stuck in Neutral is thew book for you! Once you pick it up you won't be able to put it down (I couldn't). This book is about a 14 year old boy that can not control himself because he is parapelegic. Even though people might judge him for being different he is able to be like any other teenager. I felt l was becoming another person. This book was heartbreaking and real life.You will get a great idea of what someone else's life is like. I think anybody would like this book because it teaches you a lesson on how even thogh someone might de different you should treat them the way you would treat an ordinary person.

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Summary: 18 year old, NEHI Student
Review: In the book,Stuck In Neutral, by Terry Trueman, the main character is Shawn McDaniel. Shawn was born with cerebral palsy so severe that his body has no muscle control whatsoever. He lives at home with his mother and sister, but his father is only a visitor since his parents are divorced. Unknown to everyone around Shawn, he has an extremely, incredable memory.

Shawn fears that his father wants to kill him. Shawn has some very upsetting experiences while with his father. Shawn's father feels that his son suffers a lot of pain and misery. He expresses these feelings through Pulitzer prize winning poems that he has written and read to Shawn.

The book was fairly good except the ending left me hanging. They never revealed whether or not Shawn's father actually did kill him. I give this book three stars.

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Summary: Eye Opener
Review: Nothing less than inspirational. This book offers a perspective on life that has never before been so unique. Shawn is a boy with many problems. He can't get his family to hear him. He can't tell them how much he loves them or his life. He can't play with other kids his age, or pick on his sister. Most importantly, Shawn can not keep his father from killing him. Something happened to Shawn when he was a new baby, and now the doctors say that he has the development of only a few months of life. But the Doctors are wrong. Shawn is more a part of his world, than any one else knows. Shawn remembers everything that he hears, and is aware of what is going on outside of his body. Shawn, unable to tell the world how happy he is, fears that his father will kill him. Shawn's father has somehow convinced himself that killing Shawn would be better for him. Unable to contradict his father, Shawn tells us his story. He details his life and his pains and his joys in a way that gives everybody a glimpse into the life of a person with special needs. Nobody can read this book (or listen to it) without recognizing the value of all people. This book convinces people to make efforts with people they would have originally avoided. This book would be an excellent addition to any classroom curriculum and also for any age level. The writing is simple, the message is direct, and the affect is lifelong.

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Summary: An Inaccurate Look
Review: I was given this book in as a class assignment. Before I read this book, I had many high expectations for it. I was born with a very minor disability, but I grew up with children who were worse off than I was. I wanted to hear a story that I felt represented all the people I knew. Instead, I was in for a rather horrible read.

Even though the author is a man whose son has Cerebral Palsy, I am amazed to see what misconceptions he made about disablities. His physical descriptions, what care Shawn has to go through and all that are accurate. The rest is a different story. First of all, Shawn basically is almost savant-like in his memory (being able to see complete strangers for a couple minutes and remember them). Savantism only occurs in people who are severely retarded, not in people with normal intelligence like Shawn. I myself have been mistaken for a savant, and I found it almost offensive to see this put in there. Secondly, Shawn's seizures in the book are portrayed as fun, the descriptions sounding more like the author was describing an acid trip he had. Shawn even says they basically are fun. As a person who witnessed a classmate get two seizures and lost a relative because of a seizure, I am horrified to see this man make these frightening, harmful and occasionally deadly experiences look like great fun (the sad part is that there was no disclaimer on creative liscence). Finally, I was not happy with the description of his school. The kids walk around talking in nonsensical ways, and it seems almost as if Shawn was looking down on them. Of all the children with physical and mental disablities I ever met, none of them acted like this. There was no superiority thing at all, or nonsensical ramblings. It was either muteness, limited speech or normal speech, not saying 'Honey, honey' randomly.

Also, I felt that the character development was quite lacking. Even if he couldn't interact with anyone, it still could have been possible to develop the characters (look at Chief Bromden in 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. He spent most of the book pretending to be mute!). The kid's family basically consists of a bunch of cardboard standups. The father was the worst character in the whole book. His poem is not even that good, yet it wins the Pulitzer Prize, and he makes a career moaning about a son he rarely even meets.

In conclusion, I had to give this book one star out of five because of it's inaccurate portrayal of a disabled child and poor character development. I was quite disappointed in it, and I recommend you to go find a better book about Cerebral Palsy or any other disablity. Be careful on what you read, after all, there might be mistakes (like in this book).

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Summary: "Stuck in Neutral"
Review: As I was reading Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman I felt as I was really there in the body of Shwan McDaniel, thats what I really liked about this book. It gave you enough details for you to really understand what was going on in the life of the characters. I liked basically everything in the book except the ending when it doesn't say what Sydney McDaniel (the dad) would end up doing to his disabled son. The reason why I didn't like the ending was because through the whole book the details lead up to the ending to if he is going to kill his own son.

The best part of the book would have to be when Shawn goes to school and he describes his teachers, he describes them in to the point details. It's the best part I think is because he can't move And can only see when his eyes want him to see but yet he notices everything especially on his female teacher.

The best story elments would be the plot and the theme. The plot was very understandable, the way the author uses major details in

explaining every little things that happens. The plot let me have a picture in my mind of what was happening. The conflict was very good also, it really made the story interesting. The book would be very boring without such a good conflict to follow alng with.

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Summary: Nicole's Review
Review: The book I chose for my book report for our school is called Stuck In Neutral and it's by Terry Trueman. This book is about a family trying to cope with the fact that there son shawn is mental and can not speak at all. Shawn thinks that his father wants to end his pain because he talked about it and he shows signs all the time. In the book his father interviews a man on trial for killing his own son because he was mental as well as shawn is. The man on trial said he didn't kill his own son, he ended his suffering as he said that Shawn's father agreed. They both said no one's child should suffer no matter what happens or what you need to do to end it weather you kill them or not. As the book goes on Shawn's brother and sister begin to wonder if their father was planning on doing that to their brother Shawn. Both said that their father would have to go through them to get to Shawn.This is a very good book. I prefer everyone to read it whenever they have the extra time to sit and read a good book like this one. This book is very interesting and has many good parts that i'm sure you'll want to read about expecally the ending. If you have time and want to know what happened at the ending of this story then go to your closest libary and ask for the book "Stuck In Neutral" by Terry Trueman.

By: Nicole Moore

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Summary: Stuck in Neutral by Terry Truman
Review: Shawn Mcdaniel is 14 years old. He likes girls, T.V,and music just like every other teenage boy. But there is one thing that seperates him from everbody else.
Shawn has cerebral palsy. He is glued to his wheelchair, unable to voluntarily move a muscle. He cant move his eyes,his feet, his hands, nothing.
Shawn lives in Seattle with his mom and his sisterCindy, and older brother Paul. There is one thing no one knows, Shawn is actually a genius. He can remember every event in his life since he was four. He can remember what hew ate three years ago. He can remember peoples conversations on the street, T.V commercials, every word to a movie.
Shawn may want a release. And as long as he is unable to communicate his true feelings to his father, Shawns life is in danger.
The author used many literary elements. He did a great job with the suspense towards the end. It had a good plot and used great imagery and personification.
I thought this book was great. It was probably the best book I ever read. It made me really believe it. I could not stop reading it. The author did a great job writing this book. I would recomend it to everybody.

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Summary: Review on Stuck in Neutral
Review: I really liked this book because it had alot of emotion and true thought. A boy named Shawn Mcdaniel has cerebal palsey and a dad that's trying to kill him. And if that's not enough, he can remember everything he ever heard, and saw. It could be an extrodinary gift, but noone will ever know because he can't talk, or communicate with anyone. He's a vegetable. I like this book because his father loves him, very much. Shawn goes through seizures every day, and when his dad see's him having them he feels that he's suffering. But really Shawn looks forward to them. His dad feels that he should put him out of his misery, by killing him. It's a story of bad new's and good news. The only part I don't like about this book is that at the end it has kind of a cliff hanger ending. Out of nowhere the book just ends. I wish I could know what his father was going to do to him, or if he did anything at all. This is a very good book because, it keeps you interested,and you never know what is going to happen. I would recommend it to anyone who likes fast reading with emotion in the thought.