Books
By Carolyn Chute
A book about the miseries, trials, and small pleasures of growing up in poverty. One thing from the story I’m still pondering is the guy that brought the donuts for the lady with all the kids. How at first that seemed like a nice gesture, but he really wanted nothing to do with them and was just trying to be neighborly and do something he thought was appropriate-like the woman putting the bagful of rabbit meat on his door…of course donuts day after day would surely get old.
Earlier in the story, the woman with all the kids mentioned how she was never going to go back to work-so she was probably on welfare. She seemed indifferent to the babies swallowing the pennies from her vegetable stand sale.
The school really wasn’t mentioned much,except that the daughter Bonnylo, was in special ed and the letters the school sent about her gum disease, which the mom seemed almost nonchalent about. but if they can’t afford milk or toilet paper, I can see why. It seemed like smoking was the common pleasure.