A Chance in the World

A teacher friend of mine who now teaches in public elementary school (and coincidentally worked with my new daughter-in-law last year) recommended this book, A Chance in the World, by Steve Pemberton.  The subtitle says: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home.  She said I wouldn't be able to put it down.  She was right.  I picked it up about 5:30 last Friday night, and put it down, finally, several hours later.

A young boy named Steve Klakowicz (notice that that name is different from the name of the author, though they are the same person.  And it's not because he was adopted.) has a first memory of being taken from his home, along with a young girl, and then to a large building, where the girl disappeared.  (We find out later who she is.) He is then taken to a couple of other places, one of which he was kept in as a foster child-slave for the next dozen or so years.  There is no need to say much more about that, except to say they were terrible years.  His wits and God's grace and protection got him out.  The reader finds this section to be very painful reading.

Eventually Steve does find out more about his family.  The story is a great example of the long-lasting effects of throwing off God-given restraints in moral behavior; of generational sin; of the confusion and despair that plague the many children in foster care; of the terrible behavior of mankind to other people.  The book, however, is also a great example of how one generation can change things around.  Though this book is not written from an overtly Christian viewpoint, Steve Pemberton appears to have found Christ and has embraced the change that only He can bring.  His own children are headed for a far different destiny in their family life than he had.

I highly recommend this book.