tiny pink books

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Scribner, 2005

I Heart This Book!
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, is one of the best books I’ve read in years. Telling the story of her childhood, Walls shares her story of growing up with two ultimately loving, but dangerously eccentric parents leading the family down an extremely unconventional path. Walls’s knack for detail and character make the stories and characters so vivid and lifelike that The Glass Castle is impossible to put down. Despite the neglect and suffering that Walls and her siblings are put through, she tells the story without judgment and, ultimately, with a heartbreaking undertone of love

Who Will Like This?
Tear jerking at times, inspiring, hilariously offbeat and absolutely fascinating to read, this is a book that just about anyone will enjoy. Although it isn’t a book specifically published for YA, I’ve found that young adults, especially girls, love this book as much as I do. I know this title has been around for a while, but I just can’t stop recommending it to friends and family.

(I listened to the audio version and recommend it!)

Boy:  Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl

I can’t remember whether or not I had ever read this book as a child, but I am certainly pleased that I picked it up for a little quick lunchtime reading in my grownup life.  Boy is the autobiography of children’s literature legend Roald Dahl.  A simple and classic account of boyhood, Boy recounts Dahl’s early childhood in Wales, his family summer holidays in Norway, and his experiences in English boarding schools. 

I think Boy is a great biography for children.  Dahl keeps things interesting by choosing nothing but the funniest, the most interesting, and the most horrific stories to share with his readers.  Although the memories recounted in Boy are vividly reconstructed with meticulous details, there is an odd sense of emotional detachment that keeps these stories simple and accessible to the young reader. 

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Harper Collins, 1998

Another perfectly accounted Bill Bryson adventure, this time along the Appalachian Trail, is presented in A Walk in the Woods.  Despite his limited wilderness survival and backpacking experience, Bryson becomes intrigued with the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail, a more than 2000 mile trail stretching from Georgia to Maine.  His old friend Stephen Katz tags along too, providing just the right dose of humor and drama to round out this travel account into the kind of perfect balance of sarcastic wit, historical fact, ecological science, and emotional drama that makes Bryson’s books so readable.

Bryson presents a good background and history of the trail, and of American wilderness in general, deliverying factual information without every sounding like a textbook.  His humble treatment, particularly his fear of all wild animals, especially bears, makes him a funny and likable narrator.  His attention to the little details, sometimes absurdly so, makes you feel like your traveling with him, from small Southern towns in Georgia to the deepest, darkest woods of Maine.

I think the appeal is also very wide when it comes to A Walk in the Woods.  Backpackers and hikers, of course,  will enjoy it, not just for its scrupulous attnetion to life on the trail, but also for its humorous take on the hardships of backpacking.  I also think that anyone looking for a humorous personal account of travel or a nonfiction book about one of America’s largest, yet possibly least well known landmarks, will also be satisfied with this one.

What is the What by Dave Eggers
McSweeney’s, 2006

What is the What is a contradiction of sorts, while its characters and events are mostly real, it is a work of fiction. As a “fictionalized autobiography,” What is the What tells the story of Valentino Achak Deng, a real-life Sudanese refugee living in the US. His story begins when he is a young boy, living in Murial Bai in Sudan. His village is attacked by a government supported Arab militia and a 7-year-old Deng is separated from his family. Fleeing the civil war with a group of other young boys, “The Lost Boys,” face starvation, war, attacks by wild animals, and disease as they walk across Sudan to reach a refugee camp in Ethiopia and then, eventually, to Kenya. After spending 10 years in a squalid refugee camp in Kenya, Deng eventually makes it to the US. Eggers counters the story of Deng’s journey to the US by mixing it with a story about his life in the US, where he is attacked and robbed in his own home.

Despite all of the negative ordeals Deng goes through in What is the What, the story is moving and fairly uplifting. It is sad, indeed, to think that Deng’s story is not an entirely unique one and that the suffering he describes, happens still today in Sudan in Darfur, but the attention What is the What brings to the human side of the story is in some ways more understandable than the true pure-fiction. Though Eggars admits that his book contains some fictionalized events and that events and people have been restructures for narrative effect, there is a biting truth behind this book that is important and educational.

As far as enjoyment, What is the What is quite a page turner at parts. Deng’s journey with the Lost Boys is an incredible human accomplishment. The emotions are well described throughout the book, making it always feel more like a personal story than a textbook history lesson. I will admit, however, that there were a few parts of this book that seemed to lag for me. Despite this, the narrative really came together in the end to form a powerful, and tear jerking, conclusion. I would recommend this book for two kinds of audiences: First, for readers who enjoy true-life personal memoirs. What is the What is most certainly a novel, however, it reads much more like a memoir. Second, I would recommend this book for people who are interested in gaining a more personalized perspective on refugees. Though Deng’s story is of the Second Sudanese Civil War and is not directly about Darfur, the relationship is close enough to make you think about it and other crisis around the world.

Running with Scissors
by Augusten Burroughs
St. Martin’s Press, 2002

Running with Scissors is an amusing, yet emotionally moving, memoir from Augusten Burroughs that tells his life from childhood through his teenage years with a psychotic mother, an absent father, and an insane foster family.  Burroughs starts off in his childhood, which is interesting and traumatic as he grows to realize the problems his mother has with her mental health.  Eventually, he ends up living with Dr. Finch, her psychiatrist with questionable sanity, and his family. The memoir is broken into stories that manage to disgust, amuse, and emotionally move the reader.

My favorite thing about Running with Scissors is the way that Burroughs manages to write about people who are disgusting on one level, yet deeply disturbed and, in some cases, emotionally compelling.  Instead of just giving flat renditions of the strange people he grew up with, Burroughs gives us real, textured portraits of these people that he came to know as family.  For example, Burroughs successfully a human face on his first boyfriend, a man in his 30’s who started dating, and sleeping with, Augusten when he was only 14.  The characters are not always likable, but they are written with depth and texture that makes them interesting and human.

Aside from the attention given to the people, Burroughs has a knack for recreating moments. Running with Scissors is filled with so many slices of life, even if it’s an insane life that most of us will never truly know, that are heartwarming and hilarious.  Burroughs triumphs at showing us that there can be humor found in everything, even during dark times.

Running with Scissors is not for the timid.  It’s full of disgusting, disturbing situations, dark, sarcastic humor, very descriptive sexual scenes, casual drug use, and a more foul language than you can shake a stick at (not that  you would shake sticks at foul language…).  These detractors will be seen as positive points for the type of reader who will enjoy Running with Scissors.