Title: Freddy B: My Last Encounter With the Law Got Me A Trip for a One Year Stay at a Department of Corrections Facility
Author: Yvonne Stevens Walton Harris
Publisher: Author Reputation Press, LLC
ISBN: 979-8885140393
Pages: 162
Genre: Memoir / Self Help
Reviewed by: David Allen
Hollywood Book Reviews
This beautiful book, titled, Freddy B: My Last Encounter With the Law Got Me A Trip for a One Year Stay at a Department of Corrections Facility, once a memoir and a testament to courage and faith, is a mother’s loving edit of her son’s journal.
He was murdered at age 21, after a grueling course of self-discovery and self-mastery that delivered him from petty crimes in the hood to an overwhelming appreciation of his life and of God. Freddy B., the son in question, was no ordinary child. He was fractious; defiant; challenging authority figures including his parents and police, at last earning him a solid year in residential treatment at a youth facility. Freddy did not waste his time. With the help of extremely intuitive and compassionate mentors – his counselors at the institution, Ms. Scott and Mrs. Martin – he painstakingly faces himself, his fears, and, at least in writing, seems to make it.
Why is this book critically important reading? For one thing, generations of thinkers and students have been raised on the notion that antisocial behavior is usually untreatable. Antisocial behavior and criminal tendencies would seem to follow one to the grave…but not so for Freddy, and for an emerging awareness of the social and cultural relativity of psychiatric ‘diagnosis.’
Turns out that Freddy and by logical extension many others of his “ilk” are that way for a reason. Some arrive in this world biologically freighted with aggressive tendencies; other kids and teens get caught up in a peer-driven world of materialism, bling, and shows of force. But the amazing interaction between this young man and his therapists, aided and abetted by his gift for self-expression, rule the day. Freddy – and we the readers – are ready to shed the profiling and move on to real life.
The stops along the way are more than memorable. They are powerfully moving: Freddy writes, apologizing, to his former victims. Freddy writes in his journal, “Sometimes I think even God doesn’t understand me.” Later on, though, he’s made significant progress, as when he writes, “I’m spittin the real.” The vernacular of the streets, reified and exaggerated in the institutional settings, is captured masterfully.
We hear you, Freddy. Despite your untimely exit, you found safety, harbor, and comfort in your world. Freddy’s story is a journey of self-awareness and retribution. Readers who find themselves following a challenging path, are able to relate to Freddy. The audience is encouraged to reflect upon themselves, redirecting their path the way he managed to do.
We celebrate your realization, in the section ‘Final Thoughts’, that “…every action has a reaction.”