Monday, March 26, 2012

Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

In the past year I have come to truly enjoy reading Memoirs. I loved House Rules by Rachel Sontag, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, A Child Called it by Dave Pelzer, and Smile for the Camera by Kelle James. I recently bought Three Little Words for the library. I had been meaning to read this book for a while and brought it home with me for the weekend. This is one of those books that stays with you for a long time and will change you. Ashley Rhodes-Coulter is a remarkable young woman who went through and overcame so much at a young age.
Summary
I felt as worthless as the junk in my trash bag . . . once again, I was the one being tossed out and thrown away.” Taken from her mother when she was scarcely four years old, Rhodes-Courter spent the next nine years in foster care with “more than a dozen so-called mothers.” “Some were kind,” she acknowledges, “a few were quirky and one . . . was as wicked as a fairy-tale witch.” She names names in this memoir, which is also a searing indictment of an often sadly deficient system of child care. Given her experiences, one can understand why she is angry and often bitter, but the unrelieved stridency of her tone makes for sometimes difficult reading. Nevertheless, she gives a voice to countless thousands of children who continue to be abused, abandoned, and ignored, and one hopes her book will make a positive difference in their lives. . --Michael Cart 

No comments:

Post a Comment