News release
Santa Clarita-based author Kristina Kuzmič has won a Christopher Award for the book, “I Can Fix This: And Other Lies I Told Myself While Parenting My Struggling Child.” It is one of 12 books honored as the Christopher Awards program marks its 76th year.
The awards celebrate authors, illustrators, writers, producers and directors, whose work “affirms the highest values of the human spirit” and reflect the Christopher motto, “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Christopher Awards were also given to creators of nine TV/cable shows and feature films.
The book tells the story of the emotionally charged and eye-opening account of a mother who navigates the cacophony of best practices and urgent advice from parenting authorities in search of a way to support her teen as he maps his own path to mental health, according to a news release from the Christopher Awards.
When the author started to see signs that her otherwise sunny, resilient teenage son was struggling, she was sure a few simple fixes could right the ship, the release said. But over the following months, the issues her family faced became more nuanced, complicated, and pervasive than she could’ve predicted — and what began as a clear to-do list spiraled into an emotionally fraught and seemingly endless push and pull between signs of progress and overwhelming fear.
Kuzmič’s book debunks 10 “parenting truths” that kept her in crisis and delves into her insecurities and the mistakes she made to reveal invaluable lessons and transformative approaches that worked, the release said.
Tony Rossi, the Christophers’ director of communications, said in the release, “Our award-winning stories, both true and fictional, highlight people who have the odds stacked against them, but who face their challenges with faith and perseverance, allowing them to move through the darkness into the light and serve a higher purpose than themselves. In other words, these books, films, and TV programs don’t just engage and entertain; they teach, they heal, and they inspire.”
The Christophers, a nonprofit founded in 1945 by Maryknoll Father James Keller, is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition of service to God and humanity. More information about the Christophers is available at www.christophers.org.
