Ellen Foster
By: Kaye Gibbons
A book that teaches you to be thankful for what you have.
Do you think you would ever have to go through both of your parents dying and having to find a new home on your own?
Ellen Foster-
A heart-warming/heart-breaking book that you will never regret reading.
Summary
The main character, Ellen Foster, has quite a bit of struggles that she has to deal with. When living with her sick mother and her father that is an alcoholic, then having to deal with losses in her family, Ellen has to find out where she actually wants to live her life. Meeting new people, going from different houses to different houses and always longing for a place to call home, she finally realizes that she is a really strong girl and that she will eventually be happy.
"Have you ever felt like you could cry because you know you just heard the most important thing anybody in the world anybody could ever spoke at that second? I do not care if the president had just declared war although that is something to think about. I do not care if a thousand doctors had just said congratulations sir you are the father of a bouncing baby something. All that mattered was in my world at that second was my new mama and the sound of yes in my ears oh yes Starletta is welcome here" (Gibbons 99).
Ellen was always found smiling.
The Book: Ellen Foster.
A very important scene:
People start noticing what Ellen is going through.
Join the very many people all around reading this novel about a young girl overcoming her problems by herself.
"The life in this novel, the honesty of thought and eye and feeling and word!" -Eudora Welty
"Sometimes I even think I was cut out to be colored and I got bleached and sent to the wrong bunch of folks" (Gibbons 85).
Ellen Foster, the narrator of this book, makes racial issues one of the biggest parts of this book. During this time period, most likely the 1970's-1980's, the "rich white people" lived in this part of town that most people didn't even lock their own cars because they felt like it was that safe.
Interesting Facts:
Ellen Foster, the book, was made into a movie in 1997.
The movie won the Young Artist Awards: Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie/Pilot/Mini-Series.
This book won several awards including the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a special citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation.
"It's the real thing. Which is to say: a lovely, breathtaking, sometimes heart-wrenching first novel." -Walker Percy
Help change a child's life...
Donate to Lifesong for orphans: