Cradle Song: December 1985

Few readers will be unmoved by Scotti's account of irreparable loss. This is the intensely personal story of the short life of Ciro, her baby born in 1985, who brought joy to his mother, father and six-year-old sister. A beautiful, seemingly healthy child, he showed only slightly worrying symptoms of illness when he was a few months old. The parents took him to a clinic in Jamestown, R.I., near their summer residence. Until Ciro's death at 15 months, extreme medical efforts were made to save him from a condition that defeated diagnosis. The family's ordeal as well as the pain felt by those who fought for Ciro's life garner one's deepest sympathy. Scotti writes this memoir ``so that other families with critically sick babies will not be unprepared as we were to find our way through . . . hospital systems.'' (Feb.)