Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Past Lives by Tom Shroder. 253 pages

I am not one for reading any books about the paranormal as I generally find it all unverifiable bunkum, but this title crossed my desk as a possible donation to the collection, and in looking at the writing style and decent reviews by legitimate sources such as the Chicago Tribune, I was intrigued.

The author, Tom Shroder, is an award-winning journalist, and more important a skeptic when it comes to anything otherworldly; he comes down solidly on the side of the scientific method and the need of proof and duplication. Given that, he was also intrigued by a report about a physician and psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who has spent the last 37 years investigating children from all over the world, who, from the first moment they can talk, insist they are someone else. These are not vague recollections but specific details of who they believe they really are and it is usually a person who died in a horrific way just minutes, weeks but sometimes years before the child was born.
     Usually the child is so insistent the family will try to find out about the person and visit the family. This is where things get very strange and not easily dismissed. The author Shroder, travels with Stephenson as he revisits some of the cases. Stephenson, too, is looking for some kind of verification – all he knows is that the stories are very similar and compelling. Is it reincarnation? Is it some sort of memory transmutation; is it all lies that imaginative children tell? It’s a good read that will leave you also wondering what exactly is going on.

 This book is being added to the Downtown collection.