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by Lisa Aronson Fontes, 239 pages, $30, ISBN, 1-59385-130-8, New York, NY, The Guilford Press, 2005.

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2006;160:325.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

After finishing Lisa Aronson Fontes' Child Abuse and Culture: Working With Diverse Families, I found myself rereading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,¹ Anne Fadiman's story of a Hmong family and the medical, social, and legal systems of central California caring for Lia, a young girl with a severe seizure disorder. The book alternates the perspective of Lia's well-meaning American pediatricians with the perspective of her well-meaning immigrant parents, pulling the reader along the tumbling downhill course of 1 child caught between 2 cultures. In the end, Lia does poorly, her parents are grieving, and her pediatricians are saddened and frustrated by the outcome.

Granted an omniscient perspective through Fadiman's graceful narrative, the reader gains the uncomfortable sense that Lia would have done better if everyone involved had merely understood one another. In Child Abuse and Culture: Working With Diverse Families, Fontes constructs solutions to . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Kristine A. Campbell, MD, Reviewer