ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS
"After finishing Soar, Adam, Soar, I reflected, integrating and processing this beautiful story of resiliency into my own psyche. I asked myself if this was a book about trans gender, or a story about epilepsy, or a campaign in favour of becoming an organ donor. Although those are all parts of this book, they truly are NOT what this book is about. This book is a love story. Plain and simple. A love story that, I believe, everybody needs to read, especially if you are parent.
"Soar, Adam, Soar also has funny moments, light moments, beautiful moments and I-can’t-believe-that-really-happened moments. It is loving, uplifting, a piece of humanity that transcends things of this earth.”
Heather Down
After The Book Rnds Podcast
Your story...Adam's story is incredibly rich and very moving. From the first page, I felt I knew your voice, like that of an old friend. Through your personal experience, you help us see what it means to be a father, a son, a priest, an actor, a MAN. It is powerful material through which we examine love, family, gender, sexuality, illness, and spirituality...LIFE (with a heavy dose of cosmic irony...thank you for that.) Like any great piece of drama, this story deserves to be heard by a huge audience."
Ernest Zulia
Director, Playwright, Creator, adaptation of Robert Fulgham's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"
Prashaw's compassionate, authentic, and wise words make this a powerful contribution to the emerging genre of transgender life writing.
I had the honour of performing the first legalized same sex marriage in Canada and passing more LGBTQ legislation in Canada's history including the first Trans Human Rights in any Province. 50 years of Queer activism seems worthwhile because of this book. Adam's story is why.Adam is the reason. Adam's loving and accepting family is the point. This book is an answered prayer.
Rick Prashaw, Adam's father, celebrates life in this moving memoir – joined, in a sense, by Adam himself, whose musings and social-media posts enrich the narrative. The result is both specific and universal.
Booklist, Michael Cart, American Libraries Association
A remarkable story by a remarkable father.
Tomson Highway
(American Libraries Assn)
Soar, Adam, Soar is a deeply moving account of tragedy and triumph. Parts of this tale are so compellingly-unique that they are hard to imagine. Yet, at the same time, it is a story of love and courage that it is universally recognizable. Thank you, Rick Prashaw, for your raw honesty.
Alex Munter
President and CEO of CHEO, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario
A deeply moving book, of truths, of life and death, told by a father about his child, born Rebecca, becomes Adam, dies accidentally, his organs donated to live on. A tale of courage and generosity that, in all its sadness, makes you hopeful of our future.
Mel Watkins
Author, Political Activist
Rev. Cheri DiNovo
MPP Ontario 2006-2018
You offer such incredible insight and contagious gratitude as does Adam through you.
Kat Powderly
President
Responsible Communications
Soar, Adam, Soar is a gorgeous autobiography. Rick Prashaw's unique approach to co-authoring with his late son and his threading together of social media posts into a cohesive narrative is so fresh and exciting. The themes of non-conforming gender identity, the varied pressure of academia, and the lonely-yet-public stage of social media offers instructors multiple opportunities to bring theory to life. More broadly, the challenges of young adulthood will resonate with many post-secondary readers."
Jennifer Ball
Professor, Sociology
Humber College
Soar, Adam, Soar is a moving, powerful, valuable book because of its story, but more importantly because of the intensity of the first-person account of Adam’s life and legacy provided by the author, Adam’s father, Rick Prashaw. Rick pulls no punches: this is not a romanticized, sanitized account of a difficult and challenging life and death, nor of a difficult and challenging parent-child relationship. He faces his own story, which includes the unfinished tale of his own life and the grief that now pervades it, as bravely as his son faced his. Though I read much of the book through tears, I came away moved by the joy with which Adam lived and that his spirit continues to inspire. In a remarkable twist, the brave young man’s great heart was given to another man and another great heart, John Dickhout, who made himself known to Adam’s family and became one of many of the living proofs of Adam’s continued presence as a teacher, a guide, and an inspiration. The overwhelming message of Soar, Adam, Soar is that Adam’s love of life conquered and continues to conquer all.
Dr. Colleen Humbert
Editor and Academic
Digby, Nova Scotia
