Ellen is a person who is inclined to make lists; she is very concerned with order. What attempts does she make to introduce order into her own life? What is it about the life even of a small and interconnected community that keeps people from being able to help a desperate child? Is the legal system at fault? The social one? What does this tell us about them and about the society they live in? What details in her narrative expose her assumptions about black people?
By extension, what do they show about her own vision of herself and her family? How do these assumptions change, and what causes them to do so? What, in fact, does she learn? What discovery has Ellen made here?
Do you think the author is saying that Ellen is now a person without prejudice? How does Gibbons make us aware of its silent presence? To what degree is Ellen herself aware of it? Is the contemporary black experience as she observes it still based upon the fact of slavery, paid or unpaid? I know the government's always created a certain amount of make-work, but it's worrisome for you to double tests that don't matter.
The lady said every time the court decided a child's life, the individual had to be run through particular tests before they could more or less turn you out into a new future. Pardon her again for not telling us about yet another final detail sooner, but a letter would be coming with instructions on when and where to take me for a thorough physical, courtesy of the government, down to the eyes, ears, and teeth.
She was smiling, hopeful we'd appreciate a free medical visit, but Laura blew gently again, saying, I'll take care of it. We have a family doctor. Shouldn't my fitness as a parent be a concern? Laura wasn't being conceited, only picturing us in a line of teenage mothers with babies on their hips sucking root beer out of blue plastic milk bottles.
Sorry to say it but I filled out that scene in the bathroom. When I got back and saw Laura running my pencils through. The lady was fixated on Laura. She hadn't answered Laura yet, but she finally said, You can take her to the Mayo Clinic if you want to, and we know you're more than fit to take permanent custody of Ellen. How many pencils does she need?
More than she was led to believe, Laura told her, but since this is the last time, I'll let it be, and hope she'll be ready when I come for her. You know, it's Saturday. She didn't say she was aggravated that the second test made us miss Willy Wonka and interrupted her plan to help catch me up on ordinary events by taking me to one childhood-type movie a month.
She was aware of how when I was little, we stayed inside the house. The thought of heading out to the matinee movies or the family drive-in theater never arose due to different extremes. Now it was another thing available just to get up and go do. Through seemingly insurmountable hardships- a nearly loveless early childhood, rejection, an abusive father and a mentally ill mother, and poverty, she is able to find strength and courage to seek out the life she knows she deserves.
She is a survivor, forthright and wise. All three young narrators are precocious, honest, and appealing. They have very different backgrounds, very different concerns, and very different family situations.
All three are reliable narrators; all see things many adults are blind to or refuse to see. Ellen, Scout, and Holden are refreshing in their honesty and youth; their voices resonate with warmth and subtle humor.
Ellen Foster was written in Unfortunately, many of the problems Ellen faced are still very prevalent. Not all children in similar situations have the perception of this young girl nor the indomitable spirit to rise above. Too many never have the opportunity to encounter a less cruel world. Our society can do better. Sep 30, Laura rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites , southern-trail-group-reads.
What did I think? That's the question asked when reviewing a book on Goodreads. I freakin' loved it. It is now on my favorite shelf. I loved how she wished for eyes in the back of her head and she thought her head size was "just this side of a defect", how she gave herself a new name and how she "lived to see what would happen next".
Ellen Foster her story, her voice Jul 11, Irishcoda rated it really liked it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Talk about a powerful hook! Eleven year old Ellen has been through more than any child should experience. Her father is alcoholic and abusive toward Ellen's mother. Ellen just about raises herself in this dysfunctional household, the "hero" in the alcoholic family.
After her mother dies, she goes to live with her teacher and things would have been fine except her grandmother int The first line of Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons reads: "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. After her mother dies, she goes to live with her teacher and things would have been fine except her grandmother interferes and gets custody of her. The grandmother blames her for the death of her mother, grandma's daughter To add to the misery, grandma dies and Helen has to move on yet again, this time to an aunt that doesn't really want her.
Ellen sets about finding herself a new family. She has a refreshing voice. I read that she has been compared to Holden Caulfield but I wouldn't go that far. She's a lot more resourceful and "together" than Holden was, a truly admirable character. Now I want to read Gibbons' other books! Marry trash and see what comes of you. I could have told anybody. This novel is in turn heartbreaking and amusing. Some of the things she says, the way she views things through her own 3.
Some of the things she says, the way she views things through her own special lens, filtered by her experiences alone. Shelves: orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids , fiction , readbooks-female-author-or-illust , novel , z , reviewed , zz-5star. Little gem of a book and ultimately a very clever story about a horribly abused and neglected foster child.
Loved this book. View all 9 comments. May 29, Rebecca rated it liked it Shelves: dirty-realism , child-narrator. This was a random library book sale purchase, chosen almost entirely for the title. I set aside my usual dislike of child narrators and found an enjoyable voice-driven novella about a fiesty ten-year-old who loses both her parents good riddance to her father, at least and finds her own unconventional family after cycling through the homes of some truly horrid relatives.
Just as an example, her maternal grandmother sends her out to work picking cotton. The book is set in the South, presumably in This was a random library book sale purchase, chosen almost entirely for the title. View 2 comments. Mar 20, Dolors rated it it was ok Shelves: read-in Ellen Foster is a ten year old girl who is rejected by all her family. After the death of her weak- willed and sick mother she is left mostly on her own, her father being a drunk and violent man and her closer relations wash their hands off their responsibility.
A sad and heart-warming story, in which a little girl has to face the world and find her own place in it, keeping the illusion alive, in spite of her desolate surroundings. Nothing new though. May 18, DeB rated it really liked it Shelves: memorably-good , feeling-it , classics , dramatic-fiction , southern-usa. Ellen Foster, the child and narrator of this novel, is a wonderful creation. She is everything that an adult would like to believe about an abused child being able to flourish once free.
The author makes it believable that Ellen, at eleven, twelve and thirteen, has the clarity of mind and freedom from emotion to recount her traumatizing life with full memory, matter-of-factness and an outstanding world view.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the plucky young fictional Ellen. I loved the insight that t Ellen Foster, the child and narrator of this novel, is a wonderful creation. I loved the insight that the author gave Ellen, in her quest for a better life. However, I know it is a fabrication, wishful thinking Abused kids don't think. Abused kids don't really feel. Abused kids watch. They are taught to never remember abuse, because they wouldn't survive it.
They are the helpers, the uneasy kids, the ones who have no idea how to deal with bullies - unless they choose to emulate a parent, which means broadcasting and home will be even a greater hell. Abused kids would not arrive at the level of global understanding that Ellen Foster does by the end of the novel, if she's lucky, until she is at least thirty and more likely fifty. I know. There is truth in the father, "More like a mean baby than a grown man.
All the time I knew he was evil and I did not have the proof. However, my favourite part of the novel revolves around Ellen deciding that she will choose her own new name. Her psychologist doesn't understand and talks about "identity", which makes no sense at the time. But Ellen actually had spotted the woman she wanted as a new mother not ever possible in real life at church. Surrounded by children, as she stood there Ellen asked her cousin about this lady's name.
Ellen Foster is the abused Pippi Longstocking of the South, an adorable quirky confabulation who overcomes difficulty, circumvents evil and triumphs in developing tender and enlightened compassion for her Black friend, whom she understands will always have a hard life. It's a lovely tale and even though it is a far-fetched representative of the life of an abused kid, I still enjoyed it. View all 5 comments. The understanding of a pre-pubescent and otherwise unlucky girl as she deals with the insanity of adult reality in the flatlandish southern US speaks of a seasoning beyond her years.
This device, hardly new to the world when Kay "Ellen Foster" is one of those books I have to re-read every few years. This device, hardly new to the world when Kay Gibbons first published "Ellen," nevertheless breaks with an irony that is at once hilarious, infuriating, frustrating, and sad.
Dec 04, JimZ rated it it was amazing. This book was beautifully written. I cried at the end Sep 26, Linda Lipko rated it it was amazing. If you are looking for a book to take your breath away, this is the one. If you are looking for an exceptionally well-written novel wherein each phrase, each sentence, each paragraph contains poetic beauty, then this is the one. If you are looking for a book that resonates deep within your soul, leaving you laughing, crying and simply not wanting it to end, then this is the book to read.
And, I'll go out on a huge limb to say that if you choose to read only one of my recommendations this year, plea If you are looking for a book to take your breath away, this is the one. And, I'll go out on a huge limb to say that if you choose to read only one of my recommendations this year, please let this be the one! Oh, my, this book is so incredibly powerful that I don't know enough superlative adjectives to describe it.
In my opinion, the debut of Gibbons is analogous to the beauty, poetry, and charm of Harper Lee's one and only Pulitzer Prize winning book To Kill a Mockingbird. While the difficult topics of neglect, abuse, abandonment, poverty, the definition of values, and the searing problem of abiding inherited prejudice would be dark, dramatically depressing topics, in the hands of a skilled author, the reader is left with hope, with a love of the character and with the sure conviction that as humans, we are quite capable of overcoming terrible adversity.
Immediately upon reading the first sentence "When I was young, I would think of ways to kill my daddy. Only when desperate will she spend the night: ''When I got up in the morning I was surprised because it did not feel like I had slept in a colored house.
I cannot say I officially slept in the bed because I stayed in my coat on top of the covers. And now I don't know why. I really don't. Throughout ''Ellen Foster'' there is a dual narrative. In one, Ellen's ordeals are followed consecutively; in the other, she looks back to tell her story. Here, in a new home, there is a new mother, a pony named Dolphin and the possibility of a better life: ''My new mama lays out the food and we all take a turn to dish it out. Then we eat and have a good time.
Toast or biscuits with anything you please.
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