A great story, but as an animal lover, I did find the descriptions of cruelty to animals, particularly the elephant, excruciatingly painful and hard t...moreA great story, but as an animal lover, I did find the descriptions of cruelty to animals, particularly the elephant, excruciatingly painful and hard to read. Still, it is a well-told story.(less)
Self-described paid-storyteller and Pulitzer-Prize-winning-narrative-journalist, Rick Bragg has used the storytelling techniques he learned from his people to write two best-selling memoirs that redefine the boundaries of the genres of memoir and creative nonfiction. His speakerly texts combine the voices of the working class of the Alabama foothills of Appalachia, his own voice as a member of this culture, and his narrative journalistic voice. In his works, Bragg has managed not only to carve a place for the voice of the working class, but also to celebrate and preserve the oral culture, history, and beautiful language of his people, the working class. (less)
When she was a child and a teenager, food often was scarce or nonexistent, and lunch, if she was lucky, sometimes came from classmates’ castoffs and s...moreWhen she was a child and a teenager, food often was scarce or nonexistent, and lunch, if she was lucky, sometimes came from classmates’ castoffs and scraps found in the school restroom garbage can. Now, she can afford to eat anything she wants anywhere she chooses.
Then, she survived with her three siblings, sleeping in cardboard boxes for beds in houses, shacks and even a railroad station often without electricity and sometimes without an indoor toilet or bathtub or heat. Now, as an adult she can say, though she’s too humble to brag, she’s lived in a Park Avenue apartment decorated with Persian rugs and framed Georgian maps and currently resides in a Virginia country house boasting wide-planked floorboards, big fireplaces and a swimming pool.
Then, in the schools of Welch, West Virginia, she was reviled as an outsider because she wasn’t from "around here," because her family was poor, and, ironically, because she was smart. Now, she’s revered as an insider who graduated from an Ivy League school and became a successful journalist, who has written for Esquire, USA Today and currently writes a gossip column for MSNBC.com .
In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls shares these and other stories about growing up with parents who were intellectually and artistically brilliant but unorthodox and even neglectful when it came to child rearing. Walls, whose book has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, ABC’s The View and recently acclaimed by First Lady Laura Bush, is genuinely humble.
"I’m just a girl with a story who wants to share it," Walls remarked. She said she has two fond wishes about the book – that people who read the book and who might be poor might see that they are not that different than her and that others who read it might see that they are not that different than those who are poor. In fact, Walls received confirmation that her fondest wish has come true when an English teacher told her that after reading The Glass Castle, one of her underprivileged students proclaimed "this here is a fine, white trash book." Meant as a sincere compliment, the boy’s comment told his teacher and Walls that he related to Walls’ story of hardship, struggle and determination.
The Glass Castle is a moving story about how Walls ultimately breaks the cycle of poverty to become a successful writer and person through perseverance and sheer will, and some have even lauded it as a roadmap to forgiveness and reconciliation.
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