Book Review: The Year of Leaning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings

Bottom Line: I can recommend this book to anyone involved with homeschooling and to those who wonder just what's up with homeschooling.

Quinn Cummings, Oscar nominee and recurring character actress on the TV show Family, writes with honesty and wit about her trials and tribulations during her adventure with homeschooling her daughter Alice. I came to this book by way of my book club, made up of mostly home school moms. Hang on, I'm going to brag about my group for a moment. Unlike some other home school groups, notably the ones Cummings reports in her book, we are kind of a fringe group in that we don't all attend the same kind of churches or have the same kind of leisure activities. We have ex-lawyers, ex-college professors, people with masters and PhD degrees, people who never finished college, people who dance, drum, play bass in country bands, sing, and quilt. Some of us work full time and home school still. We also have women whose children are done with the school journey and who now are working on their own educations and independent entrepreneurial careers.

 I tell you all this to show that we are a group who are uniquely qualified to review the "truth" of Cummings book, and let me tell you, the recount of her experiences is dead on, especially in that no two homeschooling families will have the same things happen because no two family dynamics are just the same. When Cummings locks herself in the laundry room and breathes into a bag, I am sure several other women nodded in sympathy for feeling the same way at times. As Cummings moves through her search to find her "tribe," I know exactly what it feels like to be an outsider and want connection, but because I am already a bit unorthodox it can be a struggle to find other independent people who want to have a group interaction.

Readers who are not part of the home school world will get a glimpse into the some of the reasons why so many parents are choosing this option for their children. Cummings impressed me by her research and her argumentation skills in considering deeply all sides of the issue.  She is also very funny. I don't want to spoil any of the LOL moments in the book, but I was reading this in a doctor's waiting room and got some pretty curious looks thrown my way when I got to the section on Radical Unschooling.

I love the scene toward where the storyteller is giving the commencement address at a home school graduation. He says, "As life can be well lived if you find someone who really loves you for who you are, if you find something you love to do and you find someplace that feels like home." That's advice I think any home school parent can agree with and wish for her or his children.