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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This straightforward, sincere story of a neglected child who tries to fulfill her wish-to be a "wanted and special child"-opens when Louise is 11. She's lived in a chaotic, violent foster home for as long as she can remember. After a brutal beating with a garden hose, she runs away to her well-meaning but ineffectual grandmother. From there, she pinballs from one relative or foster parent to another, all of whom treat her with indifference if not abuse. She ends up, at 13, at an Illinois shelter whose sheer normality (i.e., no beatings, and friendly people who teach her to swim and do macram‚) allows her finally to relax a little. Unfortunately, it's a temporary situation, and Louise's anxiety over leaving a safe place makes her behave badly. The author, who's now a hair stylist and owns two Bay Area salons, brilliantly portrays how what seems like "in-cur-ridge-abul" to adults feels like simple self-defense to a child scarred by maltreatment. When one shelter worker finally gives her unequivocal love, it turns her life around. If this were fiction, it might seem overly maudlin; its poignancy lies in being a true story. The narrator's vernacular voice ("When I did ask somebody about the... reason my mama left... everybody got deaf and dumb all a sudden....") can sometimes make for bumpy reading. But this rare look into the inner world of an unwanted child will enlighten readers concerned with the fate of at-risk children.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
It's not, unfortunately, an unusual story: Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television. It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
This straightforward, sincere story of a neglected child who tries to fulfill her wish-to be a "wanted and special child"-opens when Louise is 11. She's lived in a chaotic, violent foster home for as long as she can remember. After a brutal beating with a garden hose, she runs away to her well-meaning but ineffectual grandmother. From there, she pinballs from one relative or foster parent to another, all of whom treat her with indifference if not abuse. She ends up, at 13, at an Illinois shelter whose sheer normality (i.e., no beatings, and friendly people who teach her to swim and do macram‚) allows her finally to relax a little. Unfortunately, it's a temporary situation, and Louise's anxiety over leaving a safe place makes her behave badly. The author, who's now a hair stylist and owns two Bay Area salons, brilliantly portrays how what seems like "in-cur-ridge-abul" to adults feels like simple self-defense to a child scarred by maltreatment. When one shelter worker finally gives her unequivocal love, it turns her life around. If this were fiction, it might seem overly maudlin; its poignancy lies in being a true story. The narrator's vernacular voice ("When I did ask somebody about the... reason my mama left... everybody got deaf and dumb all a sudden....") can sometimes make for bumpy reading. But this rare look into the inner world of an unwanted child will enlighten readers concerned with the fate of at-risk children.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
It's not, unfortunately, an unusual story: Regina Louise was poor, black, illegitimate, and abandoned by her mother to the care of an elderly woman, Big Mama, more concerned with getting to heaven than the health and welfare of her charge. Writing in the idiomatic voice of her childhood self, the author brings her fear, pain, stubbornness, and intelligence up close as she describes her struggles to find someone to love who will love her back. After a brutal beating at the hands of Big Mama's grown foster child, Regina is shuffled from one home to another, angry, uncooperative, vulnerable, finding solace first in fantasies that her mother will rescue her, then in the dream that she will be taken in by a family like those she sees on television. It's supremely ironic that the woman who truly loves her happens to be white and is barred from fostering her. This is a harsh, often brutal, but always compelling memoir, and its very existence is proof of the author's personal triumph in the face of enormous odds. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
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