Castaway Kid: One Man's Search for Hope and Home (Focus on the Family Books)

I remembered this look on Rob's face in school. Reading his story showed me what was going on behind what I saw. I feel gratitude, and humbled. Kids and adults of all ages can find lessons in this uplifting journey. You will feel what he felt, from longing for a place to belong, living through heartaches, and growing up. Sometimes we think our families are messed up, but at least we have them. Read this story, and you will appreciate that.

This is a true story of a boy, Rob, who is left at an orphanage when he is three years old and lives there until he graduates from high school. He has many struggles as he grows up being "a kid from the Home". Kids in the school system don't like him, girls don't want to date him, his family doesn't seem to want him, and the other boys in the Home aren't crazy about him either. He has a lot to overcome and he eventually decides perhaps God is the one to turn to for help and trust. But can God really help an out of control orphan boy? Will Rob find God in time to change his perspectives enough to save himself?This is truly an emotional read with great lessons. This was a true story that read as interesting as a fictional one. It was an in depth and great read. The journey that Rob went through in his life is truly an amazing one, and one that was not easy for him. I found it amazing that he would share his journey with us readers to try and help or inspire anyone he could from his life events. It took real courage to relive his life as he wrote it and be willing to share it with readers all over the world. I was very impressed with the telling of his life story. Some non-fiction reads are "dry" to me, but this one was written in such a way that I couldn't wait to see how it all turned out and how he carried on through his hard times. It was very well written and I could tell that he really put his heart and soul into writing this book. His goal of helping anyone he could through his writing about his life story is truly amazing and inspirational. He had a hard time talking about his life as he grew up, but then to share it in hopes of helping others is truly an inspiration. I felt bad for him and how he was treated at the orphanage and as he grew up. I was glad to see that he could find guidance eventually in God to help him get through it all. This was a a very inspirational read for me.5/5 Stars!!!

At 47 just when I think I have healed as much as I can, I find after reading a book like this that my wounds of being rejected and orphaned go deeper then I ever thought. My birth mother gave me up as a baby, (I was partially disabled by her drinking alcohol while pregnant with me), and she kept all of her other children, and then I lived for a time in a failed adoption situation of a family that had their own birth children who they favored and had a much stronger bond with, in turn greatly neglecting me. Years later when I found my birth mother she did not want me to find her because she had never told anyone that she gave a child up for adoption. I spent hours sobbing off and on, the entire time of reading this book, because I could relate all to well to the author and this was the first time in my life I heard someone feel much of what I had felt as a child. Unfortunately even though I have suffered physical and sexual abuse too, nothing compared to the pain that rejection caused and in combination of all these things it almost destroyed me,but then I found God seven years ago and he is more then any Father I could of ever dreamed of having. He truly has shown me love that runs deeper and wider then the oceans. I was a Christian for twenty years but never had a relationship with God until seven years ago, everything since then has changed. He has brought me out of the pit, redeemed and transformed me, performed miracles in my life and finally after all those decades of horrific pain I am living with unspeakable freedom, joy and peace!!! I am so grateful to this author for many reasons but namely for the fact that he has inspired me to give back, I just recently signed up to help with orphaned/foster children. I know that it will become the most pivotal and most powerful time of my life to come!

Castaway Kid is a wonderful autobiography for anyone similarly struggling in life with circumstances beyond their control. If you think adult struggles are overwhelming, think how you'd be able to handle them as a child, when age works against you as you try to improve your situation with intelligent questions for the only adults supposed to take care of you. This is an inspirational Horatio Alger story: the kind of story that reminds you how well you have it in a free society, but where people still make mistakes and others suffer as a consequence, notwithstanding the best of intentions of some who want to help. Full disclosure here: I also went to school with Mr. Mitchell at Guilford. But I had only a limited knowledge of his childhood and the circumstances of his parents and the two grandmothers. The details in this book were things he certainly kept private in the dorm and on campus. And I never would have guessed how irreligious he was until his epiphany. I like to think that some of the friendships he made at Guilford helped stabilize his renewed faith in mankind, even if only secondary to his faith in God. All his struggles as an adult obviously pale compared to what he had to go through as a child. But as an inspirational and motivational story, it is a very pleasant read, indeed.

This is the story of Robby who at 3yrs old was abandoned at an orphanage by his mentally disturbed mother, the only person who ever came to visit him was his grandma Gigi, his mother was her only child and he was the only grand child, two years passed and still nothing had been heard from his mother, he was living in a unit of 8 to 16 boys, a house parent known as Nola was in charge, we all liked herHe was now 5yrs old and his mother just turned up one day to take him to a restaurant, that was it no explanations, she dropped me off and disappeared again, she did this many times, he started Kindergarten and then 1st grade, this is where the bullying and name calling started because of where we came from, during 2nd grade he had enough, he was 7yrs old and the next bully got a beatingIn 1962 he was 7yrs old, mother turned up demanding to see him, she took me from the home, because she still had legal custody no one could stop her, we slept on a bench that night, then a train to Chicago where to his surprise they stopped in a posh hotel, mother had inherited some money but it didn't last long, then suddenly it was all over and they ended up in a run down dirty apartment, mother couldn't cook and the meals were awful, mother gave him a run down on how his father had committed suicide and ended up brain damagedOne day the police arrived and mother was arrested and I ended up back at the home, he spent time with his grand mother and asked if he could live there but she said she was to old, in 1964 at the end of 4th grade he was sent to spend summer with some relatives in Atlanta, but it was the same answer, although they were wealthy no one would let him live with them, there were some house parents that he grew to respect and started high school in 1968In 1972 Guildford high school accepted him as a student he had graduated out of Princeton high school and had left the orphanage, he spent some amazing times in Africa as a missionary and in 1975 returned home, he finally graduated from University in 1977 and after meeting Susan his future wife, married in 1980Ok this is not a great write up for a book and I will explain why, the first half of the book was interesting and held my attention, moving into the second half suddenly it was religion, christians, bible quotes and hardly any story at all, I struggled to reach the end of this book but I will leave this up to you to form your own opinion

I purchased this for my 11 tear old son to read on a Shabbat as I believed that it was a Christian based book that focused on the family.We deleted the book half way through when my 11 year old came to ask me to explain what sex & pornography was!! Absolutely disgusted NO warning what so ever that the book would be addressing these subject'sThis book is seriously rude....