Choice Review

"The wound that never heals" could have been the title of this intelligent exploration of the story of the Huronia Regional Center in Ontario, Canada, which closed in 2009 after 131 years in existence. The author includes the survivors, designated as intellectually disabled and the siblings and parents of the survivors, as well as those who worked at the institution. Disability rights activists enter the story as the process of deinstutionalization took place. The mass incarceration and abuse of these disabled children and adults is a familiar trope, but what is unique is the discovery of the loss experienced not only by parents (mostly mothers) but also by siblings. In some ways, these are stories of ghosts: ghosts within the family structure as children are taken away, ghosts as these children disappear into the institution, ghosts as they die. (The cradle-to-grave policies in these institutions can mean burial in unmarked graves.) Ghosts as these individuals' voices are silenced and ghosts as their stories vanish with them. The reading of this book leaves the reader with a sense of the haunted past and of stories that will never be completely told. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Patricia A. Murphy, emerita, University of Toledo