Fatty Legs: A True Story Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Category: Nonfiction Desperate to learn to read, 8-year-old Olemaun badgers her father to let her leave her island home to go to the residential school for Inuit children in Aklavik, in Canada's far north. There she encounters a particularly mean nun who renames her Margaret but cannot "educate" her into submission. The determination and underlying positive nature of this Inuvialuit child shine through the first-person narration that describes her first two years in boarding school, where their regular chores include emptying "honey buckets." The torments of the nun she calls "Raven" are unrelenting, culminating in her assignment to wear a used pair of ill-fitting red stockings--giving her the mocking name found in the title. The "Margaret" of the story is co-author, along with her daughter-in-law. Opening with a map, the book closes with a photo album, images from her childhood and from archives showing Inuit life at the time. The beautiful design includes thumbnails of these pictures at the appropriate places in the text and Amini-Holmes' slightly surreal paintings, which capture the alien flavor of these schools for their students. A moving and believable account. (Memoir. 8-12)

Click Here to see more reviews about: Fatty Legs: A True Story

Get 22% OFF

Click here for more information about Fatty Legs: A True Story

Read More...

Last Night I Sang to the Monster Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)For several years I worked in a therapeutic setting for male juvenile sex offenders. What a gift this book would have been back then. Before I launch into my accolades, let me state that there are elements of this book that many adults may find to be lacking in authenticity. In other words, Zach at times says things that I know someone with his troubled mind would not say. Most certainly he would not have finished this program as quickly as he does in the novel.
But remember this: the book was not written for adults although I highly recommend for adults.
The other reviews provide you with information about where Zach is and why he is there. So I will not do that. Instead I want to focus upon why we need more books like this. Millions of kids grow up in hostile homes. And so much damage is done by parents who do not have the skills needed to be effective parents. Most situations are not as overwheming as Zach's, of course, with his many addictions as well as his seeming inability to relate to anyone, to trust anyone. The reader, however, will not know the full reason until the end. In other words there is a plot.
The book is very engaging, skillfully written albeit not exactly authentic in the voice of an 18-year-old in a few places. I quite literally did not want to put it down. So I spent the entire day reading it. And now I am about to order three copies as gifts to people I think will find it a rich experience.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Get 27% OFF

Click here for more information about Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Read More...