Where I'd Like to Be

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

Book Overview

A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie's life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it's hard to feel special when you've spent your life being shuttled from one foster home to another. And now that she's at the East Tennessee Children's Home, Maddie feels, well, less than ordinary. Six-year-old Ricky Ray, who came to the Home after his parents failed to come back from a party, thinks Maddie's the cat's meow. But what does a little boy like that know?
Maddie can't stop looking for a place to call home or for people who feel like home. She even makes a "book of houses," where she glues pictures of places in which she yearns to live. Then one day, a new girl, Murphy, shows up at the Home armed with tales about exotic travels, being able to fly, and boys who recite poetry to wild horses. Maddie is enchanted....Maybe, just maybe, she's found someone who feels like home and she lets her guard down. She shows Murphy her beloved scrapbook, never anticipating that this one gesture will challenge her very ideas of what home, and family, are all about.
With her astonishing ability to create characters who linger with you long after you turn the last page, Frances O'Roark Dowell explores the many definitions, both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, of home and family.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689844204
• ISBN13: 9780689844201
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 10 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 9

Customer Reviews

A review of Where I'd Like To Be

What if when you were a baby, a ghost saved your life? Well, according to Granny Lane, that's what happened to 11 year old Maddie. She longs for a family and a place to call home and feels that it's hopeless. After all, who adopts an 11 year old? But maybe it wasn't as hopeless as she thought. Maddie may seem a normal kid to you, she goes to school, has great friends, is in after-school activities, but then you go to her home. She has shared a room with people who come and go as often, it seems, as the seasons. Maddie lives at the East Tennessee Children's Home. She wants a home so badly she has a "book of houses" and a "book of people." Throughout the book she and her friends find that they are all a family, a strange one, but a family none the less. Where I'd Like To Be, is a book that all people should read for a heart warming tale. I think what I liked best is that you can almost feel each character's emotions as they change. I think anyone who likes a story that makes you glad for what you've got, should read this book.

Really Interesting Book

Great book, especially for young girls in their search for self. This book surely must be based, at least in part, on some observations from East Tennessee Christian Home in Elizabethton, Tennessee because the author has cited several times East Tennessee Children's Home (where the novel is set), as well as Allen Avenue (the actual location of The Home), and Elizabethton, Tennessee (the city in which the novel is set). I certainly encourage young girls to read the book, as well as their parents. I think it will lead to more understanding on both sides.

Best Book!! -and good idea!

When I bought this book at my school bookfair I just could`nt put it down! In fact soon I was reading this book EVERYWHERE I gave this book 5 stars because it showed a life of a foster child and what it felt like.Plus I am now making a scrapbook of my own with magazeen clippings! Great book for 8-13 year olds.

High praise for Dowell's second book

I must say that I was taken aback by the force of this novel. I am an instructor of children with special needs, specifically youth with behavioral and emotional disorders. I am making this book required reading for my troubled students! It tackles tough subject matter in a way that is optimistic and wistful. I enjoyed the setting, and especially the author's use of language, both dialect and twists of phrase. Dowell reminds me of a poet I knew growing up in Central Texas. She knows the South, and her fondness for it shows up in her work. She is clever, and hopeful. This book may not live up the high standard Dowell set in her debut novel, "Dovey Coe," which was compared to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," but it is an excellent read, nonetheless. I look forward to reading more from this young writer (young in spirit, if not in age!).

The character of Maddie comes to life

Meet twelve-year-old Maddie, who has spent years being shuffled from one foster home to another. Maddie is always looking for a real home life and real friends; so when new girl Murphy shows up with adventure stories and a zest for life, she hopes she's made a new friend who will join her search for stability. The character of Maddie comes to life and is compelling in this inviting story.