The Way Home

In this deeply affecting book, a gifted child therapist explores the impact of homelessness on her young clients, and helps them recover their inner lives buried by crisis, poverty, and despair. As part of her therapy practice, Lesley Koplow asks the children to make a drawing of a house. But what does a child draw when she has no memory of a home, or when home has become haunted by strange and terrifying images from a generation past, or when home has become a den of crack and despair? The Way Home explores these issues as it tells the riveting stories of Qimmy, a wide-eyed and pretty three-year-old, raised on a subway platform, and Opal, her non-verbal, homeless mother, on a mission to get her daughter admitted to a day-care center; Ronnie, a thirteen-year-old girl who has become phobic to attend school and is terrified of homeless women in the subway, until dream images connect her to early memories and family secrets, and ultimately allow her to overcome her fears; Angie, 'Mitri, Raquel, Kendra and Maimai, kindergartners who work to build "homes" within themselves that are strong enough to protect them from the violence in their daily lives, including crack-addicted mothers and abusive fathers. Lesley Koplow takes us into a chaotic urban world and gives us a wrenching yet ultimately hopeful glimpse of its most vulnerable victims - the children. Informative and eye-opening, this inspiring book offers powerful proof of the human capacity to heal when in the safety of a therapeutic relationship, and helps us to understand why homelessness haunts us so, no matter how secure our own lives may be.