Product Description
"When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy." So begins the tale of Ellen Foster, the brave and engaging heroine of Kay Gibbons's first novel, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise, funny, affectionate, and true, Ellen Foster is, as Walker Percy called it, "The real thing. Which is to say, a lovely, sometimes heartwrenching novel. . . . [Ellen Foster] is as much a part of the backwoods South as a Faulkner character—and a good deal more endearing."

Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, October 1997: Kaye Gibbons is a writer who brings a short story sensibility to her novels. Rather than take advantage of the novel's longer form to paint her visions in broad, sweeping strokes, Gibbons prefers to concentrate on just one corner of the canvas and only a few colors to produce her small masterpieces. In Gibbons's case, her canvas is the American South and her colors are all the shades of gray.

In Ellen Foster, the title character is an 11-year-old orphan who refers to herself as "old Ellen," an appellation that is disturbingly apt. Ellen is an old woman in a child's body; her frail, unhappy mother dies, her abusive father alternately neglects her and makes advances on her, and she is shuttled from one uncaring relative's home to another before she finally takes matters into her own hands and finds herself a place to belong. There is something almost Dickensian about Ellen's tribulations; like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield or a host of other literary child heroes, Ellen is at the mercy of predatory adults, with only her own wit and courage--and the occasional kindness of others--to help her through. That she does, in fact, survive her childhood and even rise above it is the book's bittersweet victory.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 305 reviews)

Shockingly honest voice . . .

Ellen Foster is a slim volume, Gibbon's first novel. It's told from the searingly honest perspective of eleven-year-old Ellen, whose mother passes away. After her mother's death, Ellen manages to escape her abusive, alcoholic father. She moves in with a controlling, vindictive grandmother. After the grandmother, too, dies (by which time her father is also deceased), Ellen stays for a short time with her aunt (also a difficult situation) before joining a foster family that finally provides her with a real home.

Ellen is a fascinating character. Her voice is simple, but clearly intelligent and bent on self-preservation. Her eventual epiphany and acceptance of her "colored friend" Starletta is also a strong theme. The book reads quickly, and though Ellen endures considerable hardship, she does not wallow in self-pity. I recommend this novel.

July 24, 2008

A study of a resilient child

You will fall in love with the title character of Kaye Gibbons's Ellen Foster. Throughout the novel, Ellen's most dominant character trait is self-preservation. From the first page to the last, she reveals and demonstrates the backbone and resilience necessary for a child thrown into challenging circumstances.

Gibbons structures the novella around a series of temporal shifts between the present situation of the narrator (the now of the story) and the past situation of the character (the then of the story). The story, in effect, becomes a gradual diminishing of the distance between these two temporal settings.

As the story of Ellen Foster's difficult childhood and her remarkable resilience is parceled out to the reader through fifteen chapters, another story--a story about a child's understanding of race and decency--is told as well.

Like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Ellen Foster is a story for people of all ages.

April 24, 2008

A wonderful narrator

I found this book to be absolutely stunning, primarily because of the point of view! Ellen is the narrator, and we so clearly see the world, people, and events around her through her ten-year-old eyes--and they are very special eyes! The child has a way of interpreting events that helps her survive a childhood that may have defeated many more ordinary girls.
She is unforgettable.
March 18, 2008

Short story?

This book is just strange. It's a diary of a young girl that is hard to figure out. There is no conclusion to this story, it just kind of stops like half the book is missing. You can read it in one sitting if that's what you are looking for, buy it.
November 07, 2007

A Brutal Beautiful Story

With a narrative the style similar to Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird," Ellen Foster embraces everything gorgeous and tragic about growing up among damaged people. Told from the voice of a confused child, Kaye Gibbons perfectly captures your heart in her opening pages. She wastes not a word as she so perfectly sculpts a portrait of a child's quest to belong, to be loved, to be happy.
August 07, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club)
by Kaye Gibbons

Black and Blue (Oprah's Book Club)
by Anna Quindlen

The Life All Around Me By Ellen Foster
by Kaye Gibbons

Drowning Ruth: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
by Christina Schwarz

A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)
by Ernest J. Gaines