The Book
"One of the most funny and engaging accounts of ADHD I've ever come across. Livingston’s honesty combined with self-acceptance provides a wonderful balanced view of living with this type of brain. Every woman that has ADHD or thinks she might, should read this book." - KATHLEEN NADEAU, PhD, Founder of the largest private ADHD specialty clinic in the US; Author of Understanding Girls with ADHD and Still Distracted After All These Years
"A highly entertaining, sometimes harrowing, but always acutely honest account of a family with several neurological diagnoses, ADHD and schizophrenia among them. Livingston's writing bristles with life, and her insights are invaluable. Like many of us, she has had her share of pain, and confusion, but humor is never far off, (she is very funny), and there is a quality to her writing that I can only describe as a generosity of spirit, gracing every page. I found aspects of my own life in here, no surprise, and want to buy it for everybody I love." -ABIGAIL THOMAS, author of Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing
“From ADD to Schizophrenia; from patient to parent to caretaker; Kim Livingston has wisdom to share in all the roles she plays in her neurodivergent family. She does so with humor and hope and a wealth of up-to date information on how to think about and manage these disorders. A valuable tool for families, educators and clinicians.” -MARY E. PLOUFFE Ph.D., Clinical psychologist and author of I Know it in My Heart: Walking through Grief with a Child (SWP 2017)
"Her story, told with incisive scenecraft and an eye for the affecting detail, calls for empathy and action, all stirring hope that peace and understanding are possible, even for people who have spent years believing entropy and chaos to be innate to their identity." BookLife Review
“Any parent who has faced diverse challenges in the family or their own mental and physical health struggles will find Walks Like a Duck alternately surprisingly funny and thought-provoking as it navigates a medical system's rigid ways and a mother's medical, legal, and personal battles, both within the system and in her own home.” -Diane Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“’Walks Like a Duck’ also walks like a picture of one woman’s path to health of mind and body for her son, and how that twist unexpectedly brings her to finding the much-needed same for herself. I’ve loved this writer’s honesty, voice, clarity, humor and generosity since the first sentences of hers I read, and I’m so grateful to find all those elements and qualities in a mental health memoir I can press into the hands of readers also trying to best understand why they are who they are.” -SUZANNE STREMPEK SHEA, Author of Songs From a Lead-lined Room: Notes – High and Low – From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation
Drowning in the unrealistic demands of motherhood, this English Professor steals her son’s ADHD medication and watches it transform her life—for good and bad. She experiments with functional medicine to learn her brain’s potential and bio-hacks her way to a healthy body and mind. Livingston’s story is for parents who are overwhelmed, embarrassed by their messy house, or worried about labeling and medicating their children; for teachers seeking insight into the mind of that quiet back-row student; and for families dealing with each other’s divergent brains. Walks Like a Duck is a tale of chaos and order, a journey toward taking control.