The Glass Castle (By Jeannette Walls 2005) #1

It's and interesting story how I came to begin reading this book. My family's neighbors, over the Christmas break, asked us if some of their family members could stay in our house for a couple of nights while we were out of town. We tentatively said yes, hoping that our house would not be destroyed or ransacked by these strangers. When we came back from our vacation, we found the house in tact. As I came into my bedroom, "The Glass Castle" was sitting on my bed with a postcard stuck inside from the author. She wrote that she had stayed in my room and was giving me her book, a memoir of her life, as a sign of gratitude. I know that story didn't really have anything to do with the actual book, but knowing that this woman slept in my bed and used my bathroom gives me a feeling of being much closer to her and her story than I would have if it was any other book.
So now to the actual assignment.
In her book, Walls tells the story of her crazy childhood with two very strange parents. So far, her family is constantly on the move, never staying in one town for more than a few weeks. Although not directly stated, I can glean that their situation is due to unpaid taxes and other such crimes. The book is written from Wall's point of view, who at the moment is only four. So she does not fully understand what is going on. Her father tells her exciting stories about how they are on the run from the FBI and the Mafia, which her four year old self believes. But the reader can understand that this is not true and must try to make her own assumptions. Wall's choice to tell the story from a young child's point of view causes the reader to have a very restricted idea of what is going on. Walls does not know what issues her parents are going through, so neither does the reader. Her mother and father's parenting styles are unorthodox to say the least. They believe in not nurturing children, but to let them fend for themselves. Having had a childhood opposite to that myself, reading Walls' thoughts as a child is strange. To her, her parents are doing her a favor, and making her grow stronger. After a while, when she is still four, she doesn't even seem to notice when blood is pouring from scrapes on her knees. Reading the book from her perspective shows that while she was young, she was much older mentally and more capable of dealing with pain than other four year olds.