A 12-year-old girl deals with problems of overweight and family relationships.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three Cheers for Dinah!,
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This review is from: Dinah and the Green Fat Kingdom (Paperback)
Dinah is, in her words at 12, 4'11" and 122 pounds. Her older brother Tony, 16 and over-indulged cousin Brenda, 10 and indomitable mother, hound her mercilessly about her weight. To them all roads lead to Rome and Dinah baiting has become rather a cruel sport for them. Dinah has a loving father and younger brother, Jack, 9 as allies.
That touchstone year Dinah develops other allies. She adopts a pug from a traveling shelter, she meets two elderly "husky" women and creates an imaginary world called "the green fat kingdom" where everyone is green and fat and thin is undesirable. Indeed, Dinah does need some inner reserves. She has a perfectionistic mother who makes life miserable for her. One of her more memorable blunders was to spring a nasty surprise on Dinah. She makes her attend a nutrition program which is conducted at a special school in their town. Dinah is simply told to take the town bus there and was given no advance warning. Another nasty trick was threatening to take her pug away if she eats any desserts during a 3-month period. Brenda is allowed to get a cat and keep it in the room the girls share. Brenda skates by with murder and does everything she can to make problems for Dinah. I didn't like the way Dinah's mother would lace into her in front of Brenda and constantly sing Brenda's praises. Dinah begs to move out of the room the girls share because she cannot stand "perfect Brenda" and her cat. My favorite part was when Dinah, sick of Brenda and her mother's hounding and brother Tony's razzing finally stood up for herself. She let this trio of jackals know just what they were doing to her before rushing out of the house with no intention of returning. "I could find the cure for cancer and it wouldn't matter because I'm fat...the only thing that matters to you is being thin...Maybe he's trying to get away from her...And I don't blame Brenda's father for staying away this year. If I were him I'd stay away forever." Jack defends her and I cheered Jack! I also like the way Jack said that their mother's hosting a dinner for Brenda was "a stupid idea." Brenda's father, an engineer had written her telling her he would be out of the country for one whole year. Since the girl's mother was dead, she was technically a ward of her aunt and uncle. The dinner is a bust, with everyone hounding and heckling Dinah save for Jack. Dinah runs to the home of the "husky women." She has made friends with their nephew, who is her age. He attends the school where her nutrition counseling sessions are held; he has cerebral palsy. It is the three of them who convince Dinah she has to "go back home and fight it out" and that running away is no solution. Dinah reluctantly gives them her number and it is her father who comes to get her. During their long walk home, they clear the air between them. Once home, Dinah once again confronts her seemingly indomitable mother who finally relents and admits her behavior was reprehensible. Dinah is allowed to move into her own room and leave Brenda behind. She is also allowed to keep her pug. "I should never have held that over you. It was terribly stupid and terribly wrong," Dinah's mother says after Dinah said she took her dog with her to protect him from being returned to the pound. It is during a "confessional" of sorts with her seemingly impossible mother that Dinah is empowered to make her own decisions and take charge of her own weight and weight related issues. Dinah is a lovable, sympathetic character whose pleas for respect and acceptance will certainly reevaluate one's response towards the weight of others.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bring this gem back into print!,
By
This review is from: Dinah and the Green Fat Kingdom (Paperback)
Do you remember the first time, when you were growing up, that you couldn't make-believe anymore? Where your yard wouldn't turn into a store or your bike into a car? This book examines, among other things, the last few weeks of childhood.
The tensions in Dinah's young life are making her very sour. She is becoming increasingly value-less to the world the fatter she gets, it's become the only thing her busy mother cares about; that and praising Dinah's sad skinny perfect little cousin who lives with them. She can't find her place in this world, so she invents her own world, for her and her ugly little puppy, sitting in a hidden tree writing in her notebook about the Green Fat Kingdom. But then she meets the weird family up the hill, and finds maybe there is a happy spot in reality for her, too. This book has stuck with me my entire life. I read it last year, and it was better than I remembered when I was 10.
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