Saving Max Book Report

Cameron Shull

Saving Max
By: Cameron Shull Saving Max by Antionette van Huegtan, was a book about a mother who decided to put her son, Max, in a mental hospital due to the fact that he was suicidal and his counselor suggested that to see if anything else was wrong with him. While Max was in there, he was diagnosed with other illnesses but was also accused of killing Jonah, another patient there. Maxs mom knew that her son wouldnt due such a thing, so she went to Jonahs house and searched around to find some things. She found that Jonahs mom had a dead baby fetus in her closet, restraints on Jonahs bed, a dog collar hooked to Jonahs bed, journals that told about 4 kids before Jonah where his mom killed them, and many other interesting aspects to this. When she got back, she proved Max innocent and that Jonahs mom was the one that killed him. It was then found out that Jonahs mom had Munchausen disease. One of the illnesses mentioned in the book was ADHD. This is where the person who has it has problems with paying attention, over activity, and impulsivity. It can also cause depression, lack of sleep, learning disabilities, and behavior problems. It can affect the people around them because the parents will have to try even harder to get the kid to pay attention, or will have to get them a special teacher if it leads to having learning disabilities. Also, the child might have to go to counseling for depression. Another illness mentioned was depression. Depression is a mood disorder where feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration mess with their life. It affects the people around them because the people could try their hardest to make them happy but it wont work, and the person might have to go to counseling to cope with their depression. Autism was also an illness mentioned in the book. Autism is where the person has impaired social interaction and communication, restricted or repetitive behaviors, and for some people with it can be hard for them to learn how to speak. It affects the people around them because they have to stick to a specific schedule and cant say certain things or it could set the person off. Pervasive development delay which causes delays in development, causes problems with communicating with people, and socializing. This can affect the people around because they will have to try extra hard to communicate with them and have to try harder for them to learn. Munchausen by proxy syndrome is a rare form of child abuse where the parent will exaggerate or fabricate the childs illness. Sometimes the parent will try to make the illness worse. The parent will do this so they can receive sympathy from people once they find out the

Saving Max Book Report

Cameron Shull

child has something wrong with them. Sometimes, this illness can lead to murder, like it did in the book. The parent will want to get more sympathy than they have been getting, so they will kill the child in hopes of getting sympathy. This can affect the people around them because it can make them sad when something happens to the kid or when the kid dies.