A growing problem in schools around the country is the topic of censoring books from children based on parents and teachers’ beliefs on what’s appropriate for students. There’s no doubt in my mind that The Glass Castle is filled with adult themes not primarily written for a younger audience. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls’ life, largely her childhood with her parents and siblings, and her breaking away from her parents to become a relatively successful adult. The novel contains events of sexual assault and substance abuse, Jeannette’s parents raise her and her siblings horribly and there’s plenty of violence scattered throughout the book- Jeannette tries to shoot another child from her school at one point. However, this doesn’t mean this book should be banned from schools. This book should be allowed to be read by at least high school students not only because of how well-written and a good read it is, but the various lessons about life it offers to the reader, largely through Jeannette’s father. I want to clarify that this book shouldn’t be allowed in somewhere like an elementary school’s library; this book is more fitting for an older, more mature audience. My brother however, who’s in middle school, is a better example of the younger end that could reasonably understand this book. He’s 12 years old on the verge of 13, and after reading The Glass Castle he learned that, in his own words, “If someone is holding you back, you should probably leave
In the Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls and her siblings experience bullying multiple times. Jeannette explains how kids bullied her because she had filthy clothing, she was very skinny and not the most attractive, and she lived in a shack with no heat or air. Almost everyday when she was at school she would get bullied. Jeannette has learned to be a stronger person and to not let those people get to her. The experiences Jeannette has faced made her a tough person.
Reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls was a journey in itself. As I dived deeper into the book everyday, I started feeling like I was apart of the Walls family, going through everything that they were experiencing. Reading about all their crazy experiences from one of the daughter's point of views, was incredibly intriguing. It is a personal memoir of her years of growing up with her alcoholic father, delusional mother, and three siblings. The book is full of hardships. The family continually suffers especially the children as they grow up. The amazing part of the book is how the kids, especially Jeanette, made good lives for themselves even when throughout their childhood they had just about nothing. Jeanette took all her struggles
I, Riley Rutland, am writing this letter to each of you to express my concerns about the recent book choices that Easley High has permitted to let my freshman honor’s class to read. The book that I feel strongly should be banned from all school libraries is called The Glass Castle. My main objective is to clearly explain why I along with many parents agree to the removal of this book. The main reasons it should be banned is because of the inappropriate language used, its sexual content, the use of no rules shown, and the censorship that should be taking place.
In the novel The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the uncertain future of the Walls’ children was questionable from the start. From a drunk father, to never having a steady home, the author tells of her idiosyncratic youth to describe the bitterness and longing for an ordinary childhood.
Colson Whitehead once said, “Let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things”. In the memoir “The Glass Castle,” author Jeannette Walls faces despair and turmoil as a result of her impoverished and dysfunctional upbringing. As Jeannette grows up, she watches her father Rex fail to reach his full potential and his dream to build a Glass Castle shatter as his alcoholism takes control. Aware of the devastation her father was causing, she begins to slowly lose faith in him but doesn’t fail to escape her destructive household and pursue her dreams of becoming a journalist. Due to her parent’s lack of parenting and being forced to fend for herself, Jeannette developed a sense of responsibility to care for others and make amends to improve the family’s lifestyle. Despite the turbulence and destruction her parents had caused over the years, unlike her father, Jeannette was able to find the strength to overcome obstacles, developing characteristics that ultimately lead her to achieving her dream, thus illustrating that adversity has the power to shape one’s identity.
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, giving the public a look at her rough upbringing and her nomadic childhood. The memoir, however is written in a way of which the author is not seeking sympathy from the reader. She also wrote in such a way as to not induce anger in the reader, as that is not what she was searching for. Jeannette wrote in order to inform and inspire, and to tell a tale as crazy as it is. Jeannette grew up, one of four siblings. Her parents had alternate methods of parenting and different ideas of how children should be raised. They taught them to have similar morals to them, and similar values. Although, as the children age, they begin to realize how wrong their parents are, and how
As flames engulfed her dress, they burned down her stomach as she screamed for help. This was the first memory Jeannette Walls had in The Glass Castle . The plot of the story reveals her childhood of poverty as she moved around the country with her delusional family. Her alcoholic father and mentally ill mother created a very different lifestyle for their children, and raised them like no other. The unique plot, strong characters, and many settings make the novel successful. In this autobiography, she perseveres through tough times and leads the reader down the path she took to adulthood.
What would be the difference between the genre of banned and non-banned books be? All there is to separate the two from banned and non-banned would be the way the writer would be making the book sound or their use of language that would separate the two from the other books of their genre that don't be straightforward with their ideas or events that happen for any reason at all.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a perfect example of selfishness and neglect brought upon by the parents and how influences their children through life. The Glass Castle isn’t just a story, but it is someone’s actual life and how it was affected by selfish/neglectful her parents. This is a memoir of her life and all that she went through as a child with troubled parents and how it affected her life and the life of her siblings. Jeannette is the middle child out of four children. There is Lori who is the oldest sister, Brian who is Jeannette’s younger brother, a their
The meaning of censorship is when someone is trying to block something from being read. Book banning is when removing of those material.The New York Times article talks about different books that are banned. It also talks about why and why not books should not be banned.The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls is challenged because of offensive language, sexually explicit, and abuse due to alcoholism. The Glass Castle should not be challenged because the message is more important than the offensive language, sexualy explict , and abuse. I believe that you should be mature enough and warned about it before you read it.
After nearly drowning Jeannette Walls, Rex Walls tells her that, “if you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”(Walls 66). The Glass Castle, told through Jeannette Walls, is a straightforward and content-toned memoir that describes the life within her dysfunctional family, consisting of an eccentric, free-spirited mother, an intellectual, but alcoholic father, and self-sufficient siblings. The Glass Castle should be considered as a summer reading for the class of 2019 because of its unique abilities to entertain the audience while simultaneously giving helpful guidance in the audience’s life. The book, although true, is told from an optimist’s viewpoint that gives the story an almost humorous vibe that the audience can appreciate,
The human experience of an outcast is illustrated by Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle by the element of chaos expressed throughout the book, the parents’ refusal to conform to social standards, and the poverty that shaped her childhood.
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. In this book, Jeannette recounts her unconventional upbringing along with her three siblings. Yet, despite of it all, she grew up to have an ordinary life as an adult with a professional career in journalism. Throughout childhood, Jeannette’s family lived like vagabonds, having no permanent residence, sometimes even not having an actual home but sleeping in the family station wagon. One day they lived in the middle of the desert by Joshua Tree, the next week they lived in Las Vegas, then following week it was Welch, West Virginia. Because of all the moving that the family did, the children sometimes found themselves homeschooled, and other times were enrolled in school. The parents, Rose Mary and Rex, though flighty parents, were intellectual, artistic, and visionaries. They instilled these values into their children. Coincidentally, the children tapped into having their own traits and talents. Lori is the artist, Jeannette is the journalist, while Brian is the mediator. Unfortunately, Maureen, the youngest, never learned resiliency nor did she find herself or come to her own. As the children grew older, one by one, they moved to New York to live an ordinary life and pursue their own individual passion. Lori became a fantasy illustrator, Brian became a police sergeant, and Jeannette became a TV correspondent. Maureen was the last one to move to New
From all I have read in The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is about the pain a little girl endured from cooking her own dinner at a small age of 3 and how her father happily took her out of the hospital; prematurely, with an assuring and comforting smile. My initial impression of this memoir is that it is extremely surprising and appalling. Experiencing even a small inkling as to how a big portion of our country lives is preposterous. I have heard stories since a young age of shootings in bad neighborhoods, seen homeless asking for food and watched people sleeping on the side of a road just trying to stay alive. But by reading the writing of a person describing her personal experiences, the whole series of events suddenly seemed
“The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls is an extremely captivating novel that really kept my attention throughout the entire story. It’s a fascinating story of growing up in circumstances that kept me shaking my head as I turned the pages. The Walls family is unquestionably one unlike any I’ve ever come across. The lessons and experiences that the children learned and endured were ones that molded their lives and established who they are today. Jeanette Walls goes through many descriptions of situations that she faced that people normally should not face. For most of her childhood, her family traveled from town to town because her parents always thought that they would hit it big, unfortunately her father was never ever to find a