Joshua Wolf

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Broken Grace: A Child's Journey through Adult Maximum Security Prisons is Joshua Wolf's memoir as a child overcoming unspeakable human pain and suffering. When Joshua was sixteen years old he was charged with killing his grandmother, Catherine. Immediately after her death, Joshua's grandfather, Andrew, forgave him and hired lawyers and a psychiatrist to beg the criminal justice system for mercy. This system ignored Andrew's merciful voice and even treated him like a criminal defendant under the banner of "justice." However, this did not deter Andrew from loving and supporting Joshua as he entered prison as a teenager. Andrew knew Joshua could still become the man he envisioned him to be when he would hold him high in the air as a baby.

Joshua shares the heartbreaking account of when Andrew forgave him when he writes, "'She loved you and so do I and I am getting you an attorney...' These are the words my grandfather, Andrew C. Thompson, tenderly spoke to me when I was in the Cape Girardeau Juvenile Hall Detention Center at the age of 16. After he whispered these compassionate words in my ear, he kissed my neck and left the tiny visiting room to begin a life for the first time without his wife of over 40 years. Her name was Catherine Thompson and we all called her Nana. I was in Juvenile Hall that day because I had been charged with murder for killing her. I did not know it then, but in the midst of this utter brokenness Papa's kiss would be the start of my journey, a journey of broken grace."