Waiting for Normal

Normal as defined by 12 year old Addie is something or someone you can count on.

This is a heart breaking story of a spunky, loving child who is forced to take care of herself. As she notes, her mother is either all the way or not any way. It is an all or nothing lifestyle and too soon, at a very young age, Addie Schmeeter learned that increasingly the parenting style of her mother is nothing.

Having multiple children that she cannot raise, self centered and emotionally abusive, Addie's mother flies under the radar of the social services. When Dwight, Addie's step father, delivers her mother and her to a beat up camper/trailer, located in an underpass, Addie tries to make the best of a horrible situation.

Dwight loves Addie, but simply show more cannot legally take her with him and Addie's two step sisters. Moving away, Dwight worries about Addie and does the best he can to help her long distance. When Addie visits her step father and siblings, in her heart she longs for their normalcy.

Leaving Addie alone for nights, then weeks alone, with little or no food, her sociopathic mother cares little for her welfare. Afraid to let others know about her mother, Addie tries to make the best of a terrible situation.

It takes a dire situation to bring the social services on board.

While difficult to read, this is a book worth the time and effort. Unfortunately, all too many young children in our society are very much like Addie. Alone, afraid and living in dangerous situations, these children develop a strong coping mechanism to survive.

Five Stars show less

Children's fiction / realistic fiction; ages 10-14. A moving story about 12-year-old Addie's attempts to make the best of her new living situation as she and her dysfunctional mom (she reminds me a lot of the mother in Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle) move into a trailer following a divorce. Addie makes friends quickly with the kids at school as well as with her neighbors at the the gas station/convenience store across the street--Soula, a woman fighting a losing battle with cancer, and Elliot, the man that helps Soula manage the store (and also happens to be gay). Though it wouldn't seem likely for Addie's mother to get a happy ending, the story closes on a hopeful note, with Addie eventually being adopted by her stepfather and taken show more back to live with her half-sisters in the lovely country home they've created with the stepdad's fiancee, and the mother receiving "parenting lessons" from the state (she's pregnant again, and apparently the father-to-be is willing to stick with her despite being lied to, etc.).

During the story Addie reaches several epiphanies, coming to terms with her dyslexia, her notion of heroism (Soula, who in the end had to call social services, takes a big role here) and normalcy (which Addie defines as having enough stability in her home so that she doesn't have to wonder if her mother will be around this week or whether she'll have enough food left in the cupboards to feed herself). show less

I've never read a book that moved me so much. Certain portions of the text reminded me of moments in my childhood. It was so refreshing to read a book that I felt I heard my own voice in. Other stories I've read have had similar conflicts but they seem so cleaned up, but not this book. This book shows the problems and explains why children will cover for their parents. While I wish Addie would have said something or someone would have reported it sooner it doesn't always happen that way. Sometimes parents like Mammers make mistakes after mistakes until finally they really mess up. Sadly that moment came when the trailer caught on fire. I was so happy that the book ended with her in the home of Dwight and not with a reformed Mammers. I show more think a lot of children would relate to this story because we all have some aspect in our lives that we wish was a little more normal. I'm glad Addie found her normal with the strong male role model in her life. show less

Addie and Mommers live in a dilapidated trailer, sitting on cinder blocks on a busy street corner in Schenectady. The corner, not in Schenectady’s best part of town, has a vacant lot, a Laundromat, and thankfully, a mini mart and gas station. The trailer is a parting gesture from Addie’s ex-stepfather, Dwight. After Mommers fritters away the mortgage money on another Internet scheme and abandons Addie and her half-sisters while Dwight is out of town on a job, Dwight really has no other choice but to take his daughters (whom Addie affectionately calls, The Littles) and move on. But despite his love for her, Addie is not his daughter. Addie belongs to Mommers, and Mommers is what Addie describes as "all or nothing." The problem is, show more Addie often gets nothing, while business schemes, boyfriends, and Internet chat rooms, get all.

In spite of all this, Addie displays remarkable courage, self-sufficiency, adaptability, honesty and humor. She becomes friends with Soula, the sickly and overweight owner of the mini mart and and her employee, Elliot. She makes new friends at her new school. She waits for normal.

“Truth was I never really liked dinnertime. Breakfast was our best meal because it was the only meal that was normal. What I mean by that is we had either toast or cereal. That’s normal for breakfast – everyone eats those things for breakfast. But we often had cereal or toast for dinner, too. … So, toast dinners became my specialty.”

This first person account of a young girl's triumph over adversity is reminiscent of Susan Patron's Newbery winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, however, Connor's protagonist is more hopeful, more believable. Even the dismal Schenectady street corner trailer seems to offer more promise than Lucky's trailer in a remote California desert town.

Both a coming-of-age and a triumph over adversity story, Waiting for Normal is a winner. show less

Addie's is a solid, sturdy voice as she copes with her mother's negligence and sponteneity and yearns for a normal, predictable life. The mini-mart owners and her stepfather Dwight fortunately provide the support she needs to keep going.

Between Addie and her mom, Addie is the grown-up. She takes care of her mom who can’t get her act together. The stepdad she adores has finally given up and moved on with her two half-sisters, but he continues to be the stability in her life. Her mom, on the other hand, complains, spends too much time on the internet, and leaves Addie alone for days in their tiny one room trailer. Addie has a stepdad, grandfather and the two adults who run the mini-mart across the street, but there's only so much they can do. Addie keeps her situation a secret in order to protect her mom.

Leslie Connor is a fantastic writer. You have to appreciate the level of detail she is able to bring to the page. Addie's story is one that probably plays out for far show more too many kids everyday. Addie is unique in that she is wise beyond her years and is able to take care of herself, but we can sense how much she longs for something better. show less

This was a great book! I loved the main character and how she coped with her mother's illness. The characters who gave Addie support were really well-developed. Lots of students can relate to how she had to look out for herself given her difficult situation at home. I really appreciated a step-dad who was there for her and not a literary stereotypical creep.