Cute book. I have nothing profound to say about this book but nothing negative, either. I finished it and enjoyed reading it for the most part. No need to keep it on my shelves and I'm not likely to recommend it to anyone. ( )

Picked it up while volunteering at the library. It was a slow night and finished it up before I left. I really liked her use of language. I liked seeing the world through Ellen's eyes and the truthfulness of them. The flashbacks kept a nice even pace. The very end seemed a little odd to me but Ellen was a little odd so maybe it all fit together as it should ( )

Ellen Foster is a tale of survival, courage and endurance. Ellen is one of the bravest eleven year olds I have ever encountered in literature, wise beyond her years, but innocent and sweet and deserving of better.

When she says, “My daddy was a mistake for a person.”, she could not be more right. In fact, many of the people she encounters in her short life seem to be mistakes, but she also finds hope and gets glimpses of what might be, and the determined soul that she is, she fights to have that better life be her reality.

The book is written entirely in Ellen’s voice, and it is both honest and genuine.

I know I have made being in the garden with her into a regular event but she was really only well like that for one season. You see if you tell yourself the same tale over and over again enough times then the tellings become separate stories and you will generally fool yourself into forgetting you only started with one solitary season out of your life.

Can you imagine having to hold on that tight to one memory and making it the central one so that the reality, that is so much the opposite, does not overwhelm you? I loved that she was able to do this, even though she clearly knows that is what she is doing.

With most novels written from the child’s perspective, we have an unreliable narrator and must fish for the truths that lie beneath what the child sees but cannot understand. Ellen is nothing if not reliable. She sees the truth so much more clearly than the adults around her do, and she clings to the thing inside her that makes her herself and keeps her strong.

So many folks thinking and wanting you to be somebody else will confuse you if you are not very careful.

This is my first book by Kaye Gibbons. I have had several of them on my TBR for a long time and one sitting on my physical bookshelf that I have managed not to read yet. I will not hesitate to read her again. This was her first novel, so I have every reason to expect she can only get better--and better than this would be some accomplishment indeed.


( )

I remember loving this book when it came out. ( )

Sad, but intriguing. ( )