Ellen Foster
...eaven. She is then forced to live with her aunt and cousin, where she is treated not much better. She is treated more like Cinderella than anything, however, she doesn’t receive a happy ending. On Christmas day, after receiving a cheap gift and had been humiliated after giving them a portrait she had drawn, she gets in an argument with them and gets kicked out. She heads to the foster lady’s house hoping that she will have room for her. Ellen looks her best hoping to make a good first impression and offers her the money she has been saving for the past 2 years, her new “mama” refuses and says that she will contact the county in the morning for the paperwork on adopting Ellen. Ellen thought to herself that night in her new bed how bad she wanted to invite Starletta over, but she thought about how uncommon it was to have a black person come over to a white person’s house to stay. She feels horrible for being so prejudice in the past, and when Starletta finally does come over she tells her how regretful she was that she acted like that. She also finally realized that she may have had some bad times, but nothing compared to the hardships that her friend Starletta had to go through daily. Characters: Ellen Foster: This is the main character of the story who goes through more drama and terror before she can drive, than most people do in a lifetime. After a life of destruction with her biological parents she goes through many houses before finding a foster family where she knows she will be happy for the rest of her life. Daddy: Ellen’s father who has a serious alcohol abuse problem and who usually takes his rage out upon his daughter. He has no occupation, only is you account selling liquor, and he eventually dies by drinking himself to death. Mama: She grew up as a child with “romantic fever” and when she eventually recovers and comes out of the hospital she sees no hope. She becomes extremely depressed by her husband and swallows an entire bottle of her medication, which causes her to die of an overdose. Starletta: She is Ellen’s only friend as a child, who also happens to be black. She helps Ellen to see that it doesn’t matter what the color of the person is, and that you always have to look past their skin. She lives with her parents and offers a place for Ellen to go to get away from her father. “Mama’s Mama”: Ellen’s grandmother who absolutely hates Ellen’s father and resents Ellen after her daughter’s death. She wins custody of Ellen and wastes no time of sending her into the field to work with the blacks in the hot summer heat. She dies at the end of the summer, after Ellen had treated with the best care, even though she never got the same from her grandmother. Mavis: A kind old black woman who shows Ellen the ropes and tells her what she knows of Ellen’s mother and tries to keep her spirits up while she is staying with her grandmother. Nadine and Dora: Her aunt and cousin who she was forced to live with after her grandmother’s death. She is treated horribly there and finally just leaves, on Christmas day no doubt. Julia and Roy: Her art teacher and husband who take care of Ellen before her grandmother wins custody in court. Rudolph and Ellis: Ellen’s uncles on her father’s side who spy on Ellen and her father for her grandmother for money. They make up lies about Ellen and cause nothing but pure trouble. My New Mama: Ellen’s new foster mother who takes Ellen in off the street, even though she already has plenty of children to raise as it is. She treats Ellen better than Ellen could have ever expected. Likes and Dislikes: Likes: There are so many things I liked about this book. The first being that is was written in the South. It is a typical southern tale which is completely realistic in its time. It was so common to find a girl in Ellen’s position who keeps her head held high in the worst of time. However, no matter how bad she was treated she saw that her friend Starletta had it much worse and she saw that you should never judge a person by their physical nature (especially skin color) until you had gotten to know them first. Dislikes: I didn’t like how this book didn’t separate its quotations. It made the book harder to read, and you really had to watch and pay attention to what you were reading. Other than that it was hard to find anything to dislike about this book. Confirm and Challenge: Confirm: One thing that this book confirmed that I already agreed with was that you should never judge a person by the color of their skin because it won’t get you anywhere. Ellen was resistant against eating dinner with Starletta’s family because was white and Starletta was black. However, by the end of the book Ellen saw her mistake and regretted and she expressed her remorse towards Ellen. Challenge: One thing that this book challenged that I believed in was that I thought that you were extremely influenced by your surroundings. Ellen proved me wrong. It didn’t matter that her mother was so depressed that she committed suicide, or that her father was an alcoholic, and that her grandmother pretty much hated her. She kept her head held high and didn’t turn to the alternatives right in front of her, she could have easily led the life of her parents and been just as bad off as they are, but she didn’t and she kept her faith and ended up happier than she thought she could ever be. Quotes: 1....