The Right Side of Normal is a fascinating look into the creative lives of children. Cindy Gaddis provides a cornucopia of ideas, resources, images, strategies, and experiences to help any parent with “interestingly different” kids to find the key to unlocking their innate love of learning. I hope that parents (and teachers) will take this book to heart when working with children who learn “off the beaten track.” Congratulations, Cindy Gaddis, on a job well done!
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
Author of The Power of Neurodiversity
and In Their Own Way
The Right Side of Normal is a valuable addition to the relevant topic of how to educate the visual-spatial population. Because the number of these children is growing exponentially, any book that reveals the intricacies of this learning style is invaluable, and this book absolutely accomplishes that. Cindy is experienced in the field and her techniques are good and valid…This book is a must-read for parents and educators alike.
Jeffrey Freed, M.A.T.
Author of Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World
Cindy Gaddis’ research, stories, and insights provide abundant ideas, activities, and hope for parents to use with right-brained learners. Gaddis empowers parents to support their children who don’t fit into conventional schooling with many examples of homeschooling her own right-brained children, generously illustrated with photos and drawings…There are so many good things in this book about learning and respectfully helping children that you should read it whether you are left or right-brained!
Patrick Farenga
Author of Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling
Publisher of Growing Without Schooling
For anyone seeking an experiential and researched based understanding of how children learn, The Right Side of Normal is the book for you. I am a retired compensatory education administrator with thirty-seven years of experience and I have never seen a more useful resource than this book. I am now homeschooling a grandson that is an extremely right-brained, visual-spatial learner with auditory processing difficulties and extreme sensitivities issues.
Like no other book, The Right Side of Normal offers practical, personal information based on an amazing synopsis of current research of how children learn. This is a book that should be read by homeschooler parents, public and private school parents and educators as well as anyone just interested in how children learn. Thanks Cindy for showing that parents can indeed be powerful resources for facilitating the education of their children. I wish I had had this book thirty-seven years ago.
Mary Landers-Horton
Retired Compensatory Education Administrator
The Right Side of Normal is an eye-opener for every homeschooling parent! It validates those moments where you know there’s something different and better for your child. It also helps you along as you receive this validation and I know this first hand. Cindy has written a jewel and I am grateful for her inspiration to write it all down. She has inspired me to open my eyes when it comes to educating my children and to document the journey. Well done, Cindy and congrats!
Erika Holmes
Former Public School Counselor
The Right Side of Normal is a must have in the library of every homeschooling family. Cindy’s passion for right-brained learners is evident on every page. The information in this book is priceless; it’s helped me make positive changes in the way we school our very right-brained boys. As a right-brained learner myself, the book has helped me see that all the labels placed on me were not always fair. I just needed to learn things differently. Very healing. I will be buying copies for family members who think my boys should be doing things at a particular age. This book is a treasure!
Cassidy
Homeschooling Parent to Two Right-Brained Boys
I will admit that after having known Cindy for eight years now and having had countless late night phone calls talking about our creative kids, not to mention all the discussions we have had with other homeschool parents on the Homeschooling Creatively email list, I figured that I would enjoy her book, The Right Side of Normal, but did not really expect to learn too much that was new…boy was I wrong.
Cindy does such a great job in providing much more background as well as connecting the dots and fleshing out of subjects that we have talked a lot about…I had tons of “Aha!” and “Yes, that’s it!” moments while reading it. Even if you have seen Cindy speak or have been on her email list for awhile, you will still want to get this book…I was lucky to get an early copy and was amazed at how Cindy pulled everything together so coherently and how much I learned!
One of Cindy’s many strengths is her ability to synthesize information. She is a master of observation and decided to assume that if her kids were doing something, there was a valid reason for it. So instead of correcting them or teaching them “the right way,” she started to look at the “why” behind what they were doing. She decided to trust the process and because of this, started to see emerging patterns for her right-brained children. This has truly been a labor of love for Cindy and I am so excited that she is able to share her knowledge and passion with the rest of the world.
Stephanie
Throwing Marshmallows
