Ellen Foster (Oprah's Book Club)

by Kaye Gibbons

Book Overview

"Filled with lively humor, compassion, and intimacy." --Alice Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy." With that opening sentence we enter... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565122054
• ISBN13: 9781565122055
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Deceptively simple

Brilliant debut from a writer who clearly has a complete picture of who her character is and knows precisely how to render her fully in minimal strokes. Impossible not to fall for Ellen and for Kaye's writing.

A gripping, compelling read

Eleven-year-old Ellen Foster is an orphan, abused and neglected by her parents and finally abandoned (after her mother's death)to a series of cold or uncaring relatives. With courage, wit, and native intelligence, she finds her own path to salvation.Sound familiar? - Like lots of other comtemporary books about child abuse? Yes, but there's a difference: the understated, matter-of-fact telling of the story that makes this book so special. In Ellen Foster, Gibbons uses her beautiful language, literary acumen, and attention to detail to craft a clean, small spare portrait, a gift to all readers.

Ellen Foster: A Humbling Tale of Determination

We have all heard or read stories about characters from extremely disfunctional families struggling to survive in and out of their broken homes. However, it is a very rare occasion when such a story is portrayed through the eyes of a child, which is what Kaye Gibbons successfully managed to do with this coming of age fiction. Because this story is in first person point of view, the reader truly gets to experience it as if the main character is sitting right in front of them and explaining herself. In fact, the entire novel is written in a childlike form, as seen in everything from Ellen's thoughts and mannerisms to the dialect and lack of punctuation in the book. This can be somewhat confusing at times but, nevertheless, does not take away from the story's essence at all. Aside from the unique writing style used by Gibbons in this account, the story focuses on a young girl, Ellen, who has been exposed to poverty, abuse, neglect, death, drugs, and alcohol. It describes in debth the hardships she faces on the road to happiness and deals with very sensitive issues such as racism, material worth, and the real meaning of family. Due to the irresistable plot of Ellen Foster, it is definately one of the most intriguing and emotional fictions I have ever read. I immediately fell in love with Ellen's mature matter-of-fact attitude towards life along with her strenth, compassion, and determination. This book has helped me to realize how many things I take for granted in life and forced me to look at the world from a different point of view. I strongly recommend anyone to buy, borrow, or checkout this endearing novel.

Just Love Old Ellen!

Here's my two cents for Ellen Foster - a classical triumph! I read everything Kaye Gibbons writes and just marvel at it all. But, can I just have a word with some of these reviewers about their comments on Ms. Gibbons' punctuation or lack of it? If I couldn't follow a story because of quotation marks, I think I'd keep that little ol' tidbit to myself and not tell the whole world. Know what I mean? Ms. Gibbons has style, y'all. Let's try to raise our bar. If you want another read in this vein, try THE HUNT CLUB by Bret Lott. It's a peach.

Strength and Determination

While reading this book, I saw a very strong, clear thinking, determined and self sufficient child. Her motto of doing it her 'own self' reminded me of my independence as a child.Yet, when I saw the movie, I didn't see an empowered child. I saw a sad story of an abused and abandoned child. I laughed through the book because you couldn't tell Ellen that she wasn't in control. The girl had a plan. Yet the movie left me so choked up that I almost felt bad that I hadn't realized how alone this child was before.I am glad I read the book first. I think the author intended to show this from Ellen's perspective and not the department of children and family services. Oft times, people write off childrens' spirit's and strength and turn them into mindless/feelingless being who need their lives to be decided upon by not so informed adults.Yes, Ellen Foster was a tragic story. But it was also a story of great courage a thinking mind. It was this book that made me a Kaye Gibbons fan !

A Must Read!

"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy". This is the first sentence in the beginning of the book Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons. Who could put the book down after reading this sentence? I thought this book would be great just from that single sentence. In this book Ellen refers to herself many times as "Old Ellen." I believe that she uses this name because in the whole context of this book Ellen is always taking care of someone beside herself when she is the one who is supposed to be taken care of. Ellen's parents die, and her grandmother dies. Nobody else wanted to take in Ellen and take care of her after they died. Ellen goes through a lot in this book. I think this is a lot more than a ten-year old little girl should be going through. Before her grandmother dies, Ellen stays at her house, and she stays in the room that used to be her mother's when she was a little girl, except all of her mother's possessions are not in the room. Her grandmother treats her badly. She acts as if Ellen is to blame for her daughter's death. She's always suspicious of everyone, mostly Ellen, stealing from her. Ellen's grandmother gets sick of her being around the house so she sends Ellen the to work on her cotton fields with all the slaves. While working her first day on the cotton field, Ellen meets a lady named Mavis. Ellen gets help from her a lot of during the time she's working. The first couple of days were hard for Ellen because of the heat and the cotton plants cutting her fingers when she would go to pick them. Ellen is my favorite character in this book. She is always doing something new. This book was kind of hard to keep up with because the author jumps around from one of Ellen's memories to the next. I kept myself focused though and then I finally understood what was going on. I enjoyed reading this book because of that. This book made me make myself understand what was going on. My favorite scene in this book is when Ellen invites her friend Starletta over to visit, and the two go in Ellen's bedroom and Starletta lays on her stomach and crawls around on the carpet. She rubs her whole body all over Ellen's rug, because she says she likes how the rug is scratchy. I think Ellen is very prejudice of colored people in the beginning of this book and her friend Starletta happens to be colored. Ellen will visit Starletta and her parents at their house, but she won't eat any of the food that Starletta's parents make because she is afraid that she might contract some kind of disease that only colored people supposedly have. Towards the end of the book Ellen goes back and reads a list that she made after her parents died and she reads the part where she wrote she wants a normal family and she wants them to be white. She finally realizes that she had indeed been prejudice of Starletta and her family for that matter, all the colored people in the world. From that day forward Ellen wa