Book: How Children Experience Trauma and How Parents Can Help Them Cope

Author: Meg Fargher and Helen Dooley

This textbook-like resource is recommended for parents, counsellors and those planning to work with children. It explores various crimes, abuse, loss and other traumatic events through the use of short case studies. While some traumatic events such as the death of a pet are natural, others are not. Unfortunately the latter is becoming all too familiar in our country, and so I appreciate the availability of such a resource.

Dr Meg Fargher has been a school psychologist, and Helen Dooley a mediator and the head of a school. The South African authors give examples of each type of traumatic event, normalising some of the responses and listing possible symptoms. The tips for prevention before and coping afterwards are insightful.

They also briefly introduce the various types of therapy that are available today – although I personally would choose not to engage in some. While support and love are recognised as the biggest factor in recovering, I do feel they have underestimated the healing that can come from one’s faith. The book comes complete with a list of useful contacts for in the event of a traumatic event.

By Sandi Mallinson

Artist: Plush

Album: Plush

This energetic band came onto the scene in 2000 and became an absolute icon of South African rock. Their acoustic guitar-driven songs were just brilliant. After being forced into a two-year hiatus by the tragic death of their lead guitarist, the band went through an overhaul.

This is their second album since then and they have proved once and for all that they aren’t just a flash in the pan.

This self-titled release is nothing less than a great improvement on a band that was already great. The music has not so much changed as it has evolved, which is what I look for in a band’s career.

The instruments are incorporated so well into Rory Eliot’s powerful vocals that you can’t help but listen to their evocative sound. Plush is a group with an upbeat, diverse and unique sound.

Comparable in my mind to Toad the Wet Sprocket and Collective Soul, I have enjoyed their style of music for years and I won’t stop now.

This is more than a comeback – it’s an affirmation of their star-power and yet another great example of how South African music is becoming better every day

By MartinetteLauw

WIN!!

A

SMS “Plush,” your name and your full postal address to 32545

•  Only 1 entry per cellphone number

•  SMS charged at R1 per SMS

•  Lucky draw will take place on 31 August 2012

•  The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into

DVD: Drive

In every good actor’s career there is a tipping point; a movie that really shows the world his or her full potential even if it was clear all along. Robert DeNiro had Taxi Driver, Heath Ledger had The Dark Knight. Clearly, Ryan Gosling has Drive.

This dark, enticing and sometimes disturbing story of a young getaway driver is probably the best film I have seen this year.

Gosling plays a man known to the audience only as ‘the Driver’. His name is almost unnoticeably never used by any character in the film – and for good reason. We don’t know who he is. Is he a getaway driver? A stunt driver?A mechanic? No one is really sure when he moves into a small apartment next door to a young woman named Irene and her son.

The Driver falls in love with Irene (or at least I think he does – his character is so difficult to read that it keeps you very intrigued) and spends time with her only to find out that her husband is about to be released from prison and owes a very dangerous gangster a lot of money. In a strange show of affection, the Driver agrees to help Irene’s husband steal money to repay his debt and protect Irene and her son.

Things obviously go very wrong and suddenly we find out who the Driver really is when he is forced to resort to desperate measures to make things right. The violence escalates with very little warning into a chaotic introduction to the mind of the troubled Driver and the film quickly becomes incredibly intense and frightening.

Throughout it is scripted, directed and acted absolutely superbly. I spent more time looking for flaws than anything else, just because I knew there would be so few (the music, for example, became tedious at times). Obviously, the best thing about it is Gosling. His carte blanche character without a name or clear motive is one of the best thought out and acted that I have ever seen.

Be warned, the film becomes extremely violent about half way in, and unexpectedly so if you consider how mellow it appears at first. But if you can stomach the sudden change of tone I guarantee that you will love Drive.

By Matthew du Plessis