ADHD and Me What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table

Blake Taylor's mother first suspected he had ADHD when he, at only three years of age, tried to push his infant sister and her car seat off the kitchen table. As time went by, Blake developed a reputation for being unpredictable and impulsive. He shattered sliding glass doors to watch them break, was lashed to a chair by a frustrated babysitter and, yes, set fires at his family's dinner table. Blake was diagnosed formally with ADHD when he was five years old.In this book he tells the story of the next twelve years as he learns to live with both the good and bad sides of life with ADHD. Blake's memoir offers, for the first time, a young person's account of what it's like to live and grow up with this common condition. It will be an inspiration and companion to the thousands of others like him who must find a way to thrive with a different perspective than many of us. The book features an introduction by psychologist Lara Honos-Webb, author of "The Gift of ADHD" and a leading advocate for kids with ADHD.

About the Author :
Blake E. S. Taylor, a first-year medical student at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, is the youngest person to write about living with ADHD. At seventeen years of age, he wrote his memoir ADHD and Me. Taylor is a a national advocate for young people with the condition. Taylor has appeared on CNN.com's Young People Who Rock, National Public Radio, and San Francisco's ABC7 News, FOX Mornings at 2, CBS 5 Bay Area People, KCBS NewsRadio with Rebecca Corral. He has been featured by the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, and in a cover story in ADDitude magazine. His book, currently in its fourth printing, has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Dutch, and Polish. Read Blake's blog at teenDailyStrength.com. Lara Honos-Webb, PhD, is a worldwide attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) expert, and offers ADHD coaching. She is a clinical psychologist, and author of The Gift of ADHD, The Gift of ADHD Activity Book, The Gift of Adult ADD, The ADHD Workbook for Teens, and Listening to Depression. She has also published more than twenty-five scholarly articles. Learn more about her work at www.addisagift.com.

Review :
Taylor offers readers an inside look at how he gets along on a daily basis as well as a guide for people in the same situation ... Students struggling with ADHD and their parents will benefit from the author's insights. --Library Journal, 15 November 2007 Taylor speaks to fellow teens and their families with an authority few experts can muster. --Publishers Weekly, 17 November 2007 Blake Taylor's book, ADHD and Me, is stereotype-busting from the outset. How can a whirlwind of a boy, now young man, like Blake, write such a lucid, disclosing, revealing, and, above all, insightful book? The book blends extremely personal descriptions of situations, binds, conflicts, and realities, some humorous and some deadly serious, with extremely useful practical information on how to cope with and overcome the often-devastating symptoms and impairments related to ADHD. Most of all, the book serves to humanize a label and a condition that are too frequently viewed with skepticism and even derision. This is a must-read for people of all ages who are concerned with ADHD, mental illness, treatment, coping, and stigma. --Stephen P. Hinshaw, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley