"The story of an irrepressible girl with cerebral palsy whose life takes an unexpected turn when she moves to a new town.
Ellie’s a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she’s going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams: She might be eating Stouffer’s for dinner, but one day she’s going to be a professional baker. If she’s not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she’s practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother.
But when Ellie and her mom move so they can help take care of her ailing grandpa, Ellie has to start all over again in a new town at a new school. Except she’s not just the new kid—she’s the new kid in the wheelchair who lives in the trailer park on the wrong side of town. It all feels like one challenge too many, until Ellie starts to make her first-ever friends. Now she just has to convince her mom that this town might just be the best thing that ever happened to them!"
I am constantly trying to add to my classroom library. I try to find books that I think kids will want to read. There's this fine line between it being a cheesy book or it being an amazing edge of your seat book. I feel like this book fell a little more to the cheesy side, but it had a wonderful main character who is wheelchairbound due to cerebral palsy.
Ellie has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. She is strong and independent and is constantly letting her mom and her aide at school know that. But after Ellie's grandpa drives through the front of a grocery store in Oklahoma, Ellie and her mom decide to pack up and move to help her grandma. Ellie is at first unhappy with the move, but she makes two new friends and an amazing teacher that pushes her to go the extra mile.
I'm not going to sit here and lie... I read the reviews on Goodreads after finishing a book. I always want to see how my thoughts and feelings toward a book compare with other peoples. I had a lot of mixed feelings after looking through the reviews. A LOT of people weren't happy with Sumner or this book. People were ranting that able-bodied people don't need to write books from the perspective of a child who is disabled. For the record, Sumner's son has cerebral palsy. So she isn't completely lacking in knowledge about this. And I can almost guarantee that after being with her child and having conversations with him, she was able to write a book on what he feels like and deals with. I think that we need more books featuring disabled people. And people also need to keep in mind that not all disabled people can sit down and just write a book. Some may need additional help or even a voice to tell their story. This isn't a true story. It is fiction. People need to calm down on the bashing fest of this book.
Now that I am stepping off my soapbox, I can share my thoughts on the book. I thought this was an extremely cute book and that it probably does reflect the feelings of someone with cerebral palsy living in a wheelchair. I know that if I had cerebral palsy and had been in a wheelchair my entire life, I probably wouldn't be rolling around saying "Oh! Life is grand and fabulous!!" It would suck to watch your friends be able to run and play. It would suck to be treated differently all the time. It would suck to not be able to do things yourself like going to the bathroom or taking a bath. I think that Sumner portrayed those feelings and emotions much like I would if I were writing a book about a disabled child. Disability books aren't always rainbows and sunshine. We need to realize that life isn't always glamorous and that things don't always go as planned. This book excellently executed that message.
On the flip side of this book being straightforward, it was a little bit of a drag. There were some low points in the book that I had to push myself to get through until something exciting happened. It honestly lacked a plot. I think Ellie's grandpa was the piece that kept the book moving. It was heartbreaking at times to see him deteriorate and forget the people around him. And it was terrifying that he would put himself in danger without even knowing it. I think Sumner did a great job of portraying someone with dementia/Alzheimers.
This was a cute book with a main character that is outside of the usual run of the mill characters. She had an attitude and she was strong and independent despite her situation. I think this is a perfect diverse novel to put in my classroom library. I give this 3 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment