Customer Reviews

Minerva's Stepchild

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this a fascinating and very well written book - quite eye-opening in its honesty and details. It's interesting to compare it with the description of life in poverty that is described in "Tea and Green Ribbons", popularized as the movie "Evelyn", and to think of how our society deals with the challenges of poverty and related social issues today.

This is the first of four autobiographical books written by the author. In trying to get ahold of the rest of the books, I found out that the next in the series of four was titled "Minerva's Stepchild", but in the US, the first two books were combined and printed with the title of "Minerva's Stepchild".

Without question this is probably the best book I've ever read. It chronicles the author's early years growing up in 1930's Liverpool, going from wealth and plenty to the most desperate of circumstances and deprivation. So often Helen was on the losing end of having too many mouths to feed or having her mother pawn her clothes in order to buy ciggies or having grossly inadequate medical care.Many other people would have turned bitter and unforgiving had they gone through the same situation, but Helen maintains a positive outlook with plenty of warmth and humor. It's not just a good story, it's a remarkable lesson in appreciating what you have in the simplest of terms - a bar of soap, food of any kind, a bed, shoes without holes, a coat. This should be required reading of everyone.

Helen is a pre-teen, in 1930, when her upper-class parents suddenly go bankrupt. Her naive and inexperienced parents take their seven children and walk away from a life of servants and luxury, straight into the slums of Liverpool with, literally, nothing but the clothes on their backs. Much worse off than the other poor people around them, they don't even have the street knowledge of how to obtain assistance, look for jobs, or even what is a fair price for two unheated, unfurnished rooms at the top of a house. As the eldest, the care of her six younger siblings falls on Helen. How she survives, with body and spirit intact is truly inspirational and absolutely compelling reading.