Title: There’s Something Your Son Needs to Tell You
Author: Vernon Ennels, Jr.
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 9781796017021
Genre: Parenting Self-Help
Pages: 140
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott

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Reviving painful memories from his childhood, author Vernon Ennels Jr. alerts us to patterns of abuse often overlooked, and offers strategies for more positive pathways in his book titled, There’s Something Your Son Needs to Tell You.

The son of a hardworking mother and an absent father growing up in a poor but proud neighborhood of Baltimore, Ennels was six when he was sexually abused by a young man who was in charge of walking him to school. The abuser threatened to kill his mother if the boy told anyone about his heinous actions. From that experience, Ennels began to retreat from life. His coping mechanisms included a jocular attitude that gained him friends in school, and a dedication to his church that garnered admiration in the community. But he had trouble with close relationships, haunted by fears and insecurities engendered by the abuse.

His experience with church administration exposed a great many secret scandals, though, Ennels is quick to point out, of which that background brought him closer to God. He has now dedicated himself to helping young people find success and overcome barriers. As a father, he takes full responsibility for his son and is trying to give him the kind of childhood he himself would like to have had.

Ennels’ book is an emotional revelation written in a straightforward manner. He reports that after therapy and much self-examination, he is re-forging a bond with his estranged father. In the light of his own struggles, he presents disturbing statistics regarding the abuse of male children by both men and women, reminding us that such male victims are often overlooked. His realistic concerns about the lack of opportunities for African American youth prompted him to initiate the JR Executives Leadership Program. A poignant closing chapter offers letters from “young men who were brave enough to share their experiences” of childhood abuse, concluding with a poem by the author expressing his own early sense of alienation, which has given him both the impulse to help other abuse victims, and the empathy to understand their suffering.

Ennels offers encouragement and advice to individuals who are coping with the trauma of past abuse, and to those who, like himself, may want to reach out and uplift young people in their community dealing with similar issues. There’s Something Your Son Needs to Tell You is a literary tool which can help in many ways to promote diminishing the practice of child abuse.