“Perhaps it was the foundational law of nature that they were proving, what he’d been documenting and analyzing for over thirty years without knowing it: the force of love.”
When a child tells you something he or she shouldn’t know, how do you explain that without sounding crazy? Janie has a 4-year-old who knows all about Harry Potter and the names of all kinds of lizards. He can score baseball games and won’t take a bath because he says someone held him under water. Yet, he’s never been exposed to any of these things – not with her and not at school. After Noah gets dismissed from preschool and is diagnosed as bipolar, his mom turns to the Internet as a last resort and finds a doctor who just might be able to help.
The Forgetting Time was April’s book club book for a book club I’m in with other local moms. I probably wouldn’t have chosen to read this book on my own because I try to avoid stories with young children being victims of crime. It’s just my personal preference. However, this book was very intriguing and I’m glad it was chosen to broaden my bookshelf.
Dr. Anderson presents Janie with the idea of Noah being a reincarnated soul. She normally would not believe him, but she is at the end of her rope and almost out of money. Plus, there are the stories of other children in faraway places who knew of other lives and had their details confirmed. Nothing else is helping Noah, so maybe this will. The clues Noah gives them leads them to Dayton where a mother has spent six years looking for her missing son, Tommy. Is Noah really Tommy? Will Tommy’s mother recognize him in Noah? Can believing bring them all peace?
This book brings up the interesting topic of reincarnation and has snippets of other books that have actual cases of children “remembering” past lives. It’s an interesting topic. However, the author’s main theme is love and the bonds that bring us all together. The book is for adults and it talks about murder, drugs, suicide and reincarnation. I’m really looking forward to the book club meeting about this book. It’s one you’ll want to have someone to talk to about when you’re done!
Buy the book here (affiliate link).