Book Review: Children of the Resolution by Gary William Murning

It was a time of change and new ideologies, a vision that was destines to shape the lives of many, and fail more than a handful. Viewed retrospectively through the eyes of the now adult Carl Grantham, Children of the Resolution is a coming-of-age story. Children of the Resolution is a coming-of-age story. Children of the Resolution explores the intricacies of friendship and loss, the subtle fears of childhood and the far less subtle fears of adulthoods possibly never realised. 

Gary William Murning has said on several blog interviews that Children of the Resolution is his most autobiographical piece so far. The main character is Carl Grantham, he is in hospital recovering from a serious bout of pneumonia. We hear about his past though interviews he gives to a student writing their dissertation on educational reform. Carl has a very particular view on this subject, being born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy has meant that he was often a guinea pig as a child as the establishment tried out different methods of education.
Carl begins his story by describing his time at Sunnyvale and his subsequent move to The Resolution which was classed at the time as an integrated establishment. These recollections are so interesting as they focus on so many different aspects of growing up. Carl was a child and an awkward teenager just like those without his condition, he had to deal with girls and the school bully. Alongside that, Carl had problems such as finding a desk that was comfortable for him to work on, something that should have had a simple solution but instead caused him no end of problems.
I think that Gary William Murning has written a very interesting and important book. Carl does not behave like a victim; he is simply describing how it was. Children of the Resolution is not out to get anyone but is simply showing what they tried to do within the education system and what worked as well as what went wrong. Having had experience of working in primary schools, I greatly identified with the fact that there are often brilliant ideas within educational reform but that they often get marred by some of the people carrying them out, so that by the time that the child is on the receiving end, sometimes some of the intention has been lost and the child is the one that loses out.
I would recommend Children of the Resolution as the characters are extremely believable and I really liked how the author jumped from the present to the past which highlighted that this is still an  important and relevant issue.

If you would like to find out more about the author, then please visit Gary's blog by clicking here.