My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir

by Samantha Abeel

Overview

In this beautiful and chilling memoir, twenty-five-year-old Samantha Abeel describes her struggles with a math-related learning disability, and how it forced her to find inner strength and courage.

Samantha Abeel couldn't tell time, remember her locker combination, or count out change at a checkout counter — and she was in seventh grade. For a straight-A student like Samantha, problems like these made no sense. She dreaded school, and began having anxiety attacks. In her thirteenth winter, she found the courage to confront her problems — and was diagnosed with a learning disability. Slowly, Samantha's life began to change again. She discovered that she was stronger than she'd ever thought possible — and that sometimes, when things look bleakest, hope is closer than you think.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780439339056
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2005
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	393,693
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	1050L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Samantha Abeel was a gifted child who excelled at language arts, yet she often had trouble with seemingly simple math problems. In her seventh-grade creative writing class, Samantha found refuge from the endless classes focused on math, measurements and algebra. When her parents enlisted the aid of an English teacher to help Samantha focus on her strength by creating writing assignments to be critiqued, she began the project that would become her first book, Reach for the Moon.

Editorial Reviews

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, 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. (Nov.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

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.

School Library Journal

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)

Kirkus Reviews