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BOOKMONGER
Barkin’ and bickering
around the Christmas tree
Society is beginning to
pay more attention to serving
populations with special
needs. Movie theaters offer
sensory friendly films, and
students with special needs
have increased access to mu-
sic therapy, equine therapy
and more. In many commu-
nities this holiday season,
Sensitive Santa is coming
to town to greet kids on the
autism spectrum.
This is a welcome sea
change, and author Sue
Pethick, of Vancouver, Wash-
ington, taps into the phenom-
enon with her latest work of
fiction, “The Dog Who Came
for Christmas.”
Kieran Richardson is a
9-year-old coping with his
parents’ recent divorce. Since
moving to a new town with
his mom and older siblings,
he’s having trouble con-
trolling a raft of behaviors
and facial tics that place him
on the autism spectrum. His
brother and sister don’t have
a lot of patience with him,
“The Dog Who
Came for Christmas”
By Sue Pethick
Kensington
316 pp
$9.95
and he’s getting bullied by
the kids at his new school for
being different.
Meanwhile, Kieran’s
mom Renee, has her hands
full, too. She’s trying to sup-
port her family by building a
clientele in her new job at the
local hair salon, but a possi-
ble new romantic interest in
her life — who happens to
be the town’s most eligible
bachelor — is inconvenient-
ly the former high school
sweetheart of Renee’s most
influential client.
It’s Christmastime,
furthermore, and Renee
is hosting relatives for the
holidays.
So she is already stressed
out when the school counsel-
or suggests that Kieran enroll
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in a new program that assists
special needs kids.
Renee vacillates. She had
been hoping that Kieran was
just going through a rough
patch due to her divorce. She
has to come to grips with
the idea that her son’s odd
behaviors likely are manifes-
tations of autism. She worries
that with this program at
school, Kieran might be
needlessly medicated, and
that he might be singled out
and stigmatized. (She is un-
aware that her son is already
being bullied.)
The complications mul-
tiply. A hometown clique
of gossips isn’t about to let
Renee be the one to end up
with the town’s “Mr. Right.”
And Kieran befriends a large,
extraordinary dog.
Pethick has developed an
involving story line. She looks
at the barriers and opportuni-
ties for people on the autism
spectrum — and how family
members come to terms with
their loved one’s condition.
She writes about the demands
of being a pink-collar worker.
She captures what it’s like to
raise kids in a single-parent
family, and looks at how
difficult it is for romance to
flourish when it has to take
a backseat to the day-to-day
crises that pop up.
The Richardson family
members are fully fleshed-
out characters who are inter-
esting to follow. On the other
hand, the townswomen who
work in concert to discredit
Renee seem to be over-zeal-
ous antagonists.
“The Dog Who Came
for Christmas” is the third
in a series of dog-centric
romance novels that Pethick
has written. This one is the
strongest offering yet, thanks
to the author’s realistic focus
on transformative issues that
can either derail romance or
become the foundation for
love.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael, who
writes this weekly column fo-
cusing on the books, authors
and publishers of the Pacific
Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com.
N
word
Shawn Ann Hope
portrays Dr. Bethania
Owens-Adair, the
first woman doctor
in the Pacific North-
west, during the 2013
Talking Tombstones
held at Ocean View
Cemetery by the Clat-
sop County Historical
Society.
nerd
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
ADAIR
[Ə•DƐƏR]
Proper noun
1. Gen. John Adair: Born
into privilege and luxury on
Aug. 8, 1808, in Louisville,
Kentucky, to John and Cath-
erine Adair, who were one of
the most prominent families
of the U.S. South. His father,
also named Gen. John Adair
was the eighth governor of
Kentucky and represented
the Bluegrass State in both
the U.S. House and Senate
after having served in the
Revolutionary War and the
War of 1812. The junior
Adair attended Harvard and
went on to study law.
In 1848, he accepted
the position of collector
of customs from President
Zachary Taylor, a position it
is rumored was first offered
to Abraham Lincoln, who
turned it down. The large
Adair family headed west,
crossing the isthmus at Pana-
ma to open the first customs
office west of the Rockies
in Astoria. He eventually
bought a plot of land east of
J.M. Shively’s claim which
became known as “Adair’s
Astoria.”
2. Bethenia Owens-Adair:
Née Bethenia Owens,
Owens-Adair started her
education late following a
wagon-train migration from
Missouri to Astoria with her
family. Having relocated
to Roseburg, Oregon, she
briefly took the last name
Hill after being married off
to one of her father’s farm-
hands when she was 14, but
reclaimed her maiden name
after divorcing in 1859. She
finished her education while
working as a domestic and
milliner to support her son,
George.
An early suffragist
and social reformer, Ow-
HUGH MCKENNA PHOTO
ens-Adair fought tooth and
nail against discrimination to
pursue training as a physi-
cian. In 1880 she received
her M.D. from the University
of Michigan Medical School.
She became one of the first
female physicians to practice
in Oregon after returning to
Portland. She married Col.
John Adair, Jr., a WestPoint
graduate and salmon canner
and was briefly the daughter-
in-law of Gen. John Adair.
The couple relocated to
Astoria where Owens-Adair
continued to practice med-
icine. That marriage also
ended in divorce in 1907.
She died in Astoria in 1926.
3. Owens-Adair Apart-
ments: A 46-unit Section 8
Senior and Disabled housing
building at 1508 Exchange
St. in downtown Astoria.
Formerly the site of old St.
Mary’s Hospital, the sub-
sidized housing units were
developed in 1980 following
the creation of the Clatsop
County Housing Authority
that same year.
Origin:
A Scottish variant of the
Anglo-Saxon given name
Eadgar, or Edgar, which is
a combination of the Old
English, ead, meaning “rich
or prosperous,” and gar,
meaning “spear.” In Scotland
and Ireland, where it is most
commonly traced, Adair is a
surname. The Adair family
crest prominently features a
severed head.
“When Col. John Adair,
the first collector of cus-
toms, arrived at Astoria he
occupied the McClure house
and tried to secure land from
the different owners of the
town on which to build the
customhouse. The owners
refused to donate the land
and fixed the price at a figure
which Colonel Adair con-
sidered too high. The results
of this disagreement was the
establishing of the United
States customhouse at Upper
Astoria and the beginnings
of the rivalry between the
upper and lower towns,
which lasted for many years,
and led to the building up of
two towns mutually jealous
of each other yet having
every interest in common.”
— Alfred A. Cleveland,
“Social and Economic Histo-
ry of Astoria,” The Quarterly
of the Oregon Historical
Society, Vol. 4, No. 2, June
1903, p. 134
“Throughout her career
[Bethenia] Owens-Adair
was active in many social
movements. She coordi-
nated a visit and lecture of
suffragist Susan B. Antho-
ny to Roseburg in 1871.
Additionally, believing that
insanity and criminal action
were hereditary, she argued
for mandatory sterilization
of the criminally insane. Her
book on the subject, Human
Sterilization: It’s [sic] Social
and Legislative Aspects
(1922), was well-received
and brought her national
recognition. In 1925, the
Oregon legislature adopted a
sterilization statute that she
and other advocates spon-
sored.”
—“Bethenia Ow-
ens-Adair (1840-1926),”
The Oregon History Proj-
ect, oregonhistoryproject.
org, accessed on Nov. 30,
2017 CW