The Glass Castle

Resilience:
“to leap back” from the Latin word resilire
- the ability to recover quickly from illness, change, misfortune, setbacks
- recovering strength, spirit, good humor quickly
- to weather tribulation without cracking

Memoirs aren’t usually the first book I pull off the library shelves when looking for a good book to read. It seems I can hardly keep up with all my favorite fiction authors’ new releases. But at the recommendation of a grade school friend I put the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls on my Christmas wish list. From the very first page I was pulled into the story and found it hard to put down.
“Poverty to Park Avenue” -- The author shares the story of her life with her three siblings as her nomadic parents roamed America … doing the “skedaddle” when money, food or resources ran out. The family finally settled in Welch, West Virginia, a small mining town where the children, living in poverty, learned to take care of themselves.
At 17 she moved to New York and finished high school while working. She got a job at a local paper in Brooklyn and was encouraged by an editor to get a college education. She graduated with honors from Barnard College and went on to become a correspondent for MSNBC.
This book is being made into a film. Be sure you read it before you see it! Thanks, Matte for a great Christmas gift.