Blog 7: Freestyle: Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle

I read Jeannete Walls's The Glass Castle again recently in preparation for teaching it as the common read in the fall. The first time I read it, I gobbled it up. I hit the point of no return early and couldn't put it down. I think it took me just two days to finish it. This time, because I knew the story, I read more slowly, still enjoying the reading but without the need to find out what happens.

What baffles me about this story is the parents' treatment of the kids. The parents are so self-involved that the mother paints instead of supervising her children, fails to hold a job despite having a teaching certificate, and blames the lack of food on her husband. Anytime the family owes too much money, the father carts everyone off to a new residence, "doing the skedaddle" (17). Eventually, the parents become homeless and seem to like it. What? I'm assuming that both have some serious mental health issues.

On the other hand, they teach their kids some important lessons: how to care for themselves, not to be sentimental, being patient with where life takes them, "good posture" from sleeping outdoors (18), the gift of gab. The kids are actually pretty well educated because the parents have a deep appreciation for science and the arts and impart their wisdom to the children.

Some of the moments of dramatic irony from the child's perspective are priceless: when a neighborhood kid calls Jeannette's dad a drunk like his dad, Jeannette retorts, "My daddy is nothing like your daddy! [. . .] When my daddy passes out, he never pisses himself!" (83) She's trying to say something positive about her dad but pretty much just admits that he's a drunk, too.

I think this book will make a good common reading book because it's accessible, we can all relate to the family dynamics in some respect, and it normalizes a variety of family relationships that often don't get covered in the media so that people can actually feel comfortable telling the truth about their histories without feeling like they've revealed something unsavory.

Works Cited
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner, 2005.

Image Source:
The Glass Castle Cover Image. amazon.com. 1996-2012. Web. 18 July 2012. <http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419l4z7I6RL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg>.