Raising Henry

"An important, hopeful book."—Susannah Meadows, New York Times

"In this quietly moving memoir, Adams writes about coming to terms with her son's diagnosis, education, limitations, and identity. . . . Generous and honest."—Boston Globe


"In this quietly moving memoir, Adams writes about coming to terms with her son's diagnosis, education, limitations, and identity. . . . Generous and honest, Adams politely rejects some of the frames others want to put on her family. Henry isn't an angel, she isn't a saint."—Boston Globe

"We learn from Adams what it means to have a son very different from most others in mind and body, whose future is uncertain, but whose life is infused with love and so worth living."—Jerome Groopman, New York Review of Books

"Powerful, poignant, and persuasive."—Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today: This is America blog

"In her luminous memoir . . . Adams writes about how the birth of her son changed everything, and, at the same time, brought her back to the beginnings of a journey that had been long in the making."—Sarah Torretta Klock, New York Family Magazine

"In this moving, literary book, Adams . . . shares the story of her second son, Henry, born with Down syndrome . . . The book is filled with wonderful anecdotes portraying Henry in all his lovability. And it raises important questions about now-routine genetic testing to identify chromosomal abnormalities."—Booklist

Winner of the 2014 Delta Kappa Gamma Society's Educator's Award

“This is a terrific book—gorgeously written, beautifully realized.”—Michael Bérubé, author of Life as We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child

“. . . this book is a composite of the challenges and enjoyments of the first few years of a child with special needs and the family. . . . very useful for parents, family members, but also professionals including physicians, nurses, therapists, and genetic counselors.”—Fran Hickey, M.D., Director of the Sie Center for Down Syndrome, Colorado Children’s Hospital

“Adams succeeds in the difficult task of rendering intensely personal material in a way that makes any reader reflect on larger cultural questions . . . This book should be mandatory reading for all medical students, especially those entering the fields of obstetrics and gynecology.”—Georgina Kleege, author of Sight Unseen and Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller

"Rachel Adams’ Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery is a must-read, moving, thought-provoking, important. I highly recommend."—Jon Colman, President, National Down Syndrome Society


"Raising Henry is not just a forthright and poetic family chronicle; it is a provocative exploration of Down syndrome, disability, and what it means to be human. Adams is feisty, compassionate, and brilliant."—Penny Wolfson, author of Moonrise: One Family, Genetic Identity and Muscular Dystrophy