Rating: 
Summary: Captivating
Review: This book, Ellen Foster is an excellent book! It is all about an 11 year old girl who has several awful childhood experiences. She doesn't get to live her childhood as a child but as someone who has to make many adult choices. A great part of this book is the way we see Ellen grow and change. You see, Ellen has this colored friend named Starletta. Starletta's family is very poor. At the beginning of the book Ellen makes up her mind that her own family will not be like that. She says they will not be dirty or have to live like that. This is odd because her own situation isn't any better. Throughout the book she thinks of Starletta and by the end she doesn't care that Starletta is black or dirty. She values her friendship more than what she looks like or how she lives. Another unique part about this book is the style that Kaye Gibbons wrote it in. It is all in the thoughts and perceptions of Ellen. There are no quotation marks or punctuation. Sometimes it makes it difficult to read but I think that it gives it more feeling and makes it more personal. Also, throughout the book it skips from past to present. It is written as her in the present and her telling in detail about her past. As Ellen is telling about something you have to think if she is telling of the past or of the present. I believe that this is a great book with a great ending. I recommend it to every reader. It is truly captivating and you won't want to stop reading it.
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Summary: Wonderful first-novel, very good read
Review: This was a surprisingly good novel. Many of the southern novels on the market are from a male perspective, and it is truly refreshing to find a novelist who writes from the female perspective. A must-read.
Rating: 
Summary: A Prince from a Frog
Review: The book Ellen Foster was about a little girl and her troubles with an abusive father. The book started out very slow and kept jumping from present, past, and future. As the book progressed the book became a vaccum. The book sucked you in and did not let go. It was miraculous. I had to read this book for my english class and i could barley wait until we were able to finish the book. I am not a very big reader but this book was very good. Ellen, the little girl, seems to have a huge amount of feeling about color people and how she wants her family to be. Through out the book you she how she grows up and changes her opinions about everything. Also you see what is important to her at the begging of the book and what becomes important to her towards the end. The way the book was written was very unique as well. The author writes it exactly how a girl Ellen's age thinks. It really ties you into the mind of the girl. Over all the book starts out slow but sucks you in after the first or second chapter, thus the title "A Prince from a Frog."
Rating:
Summary: Foster: the life of an adult child
Review: This book is an excellent piece of work. The story is told through the eyes of an adult child. Ellen is this child who goes through so many horrible events. Her story begins in the present and goes from present to past throughout the story. She tells of her parents and the rest of her family. The most impacting part and I believe to be the most important of all is that of Starletta. Starletta is a colored child who is friends with Ellen. The time the story takes place, is a time when blacks and whites did not mix. Starletta is always there for Ellen and they must overcome obstacles. Throughout the story, Ellen is suffering many trials and tribulations and Starletta helps her. At the end of the story, you see how Ellen appreciates that she has been through a lot but Starletta had and will go through more.This story is the story of an adult child who continues to mature. She shows her intelligence through understanding that the difference between black and whites should not exist. It only exist because people make it that way. She shows that she is going and will change it in HER life. This book, Ellen Foster, is an excellent story that I recommend to any reader. It shows that there are good human beings out there. I loved this book and feel that everyone should read it.
Rating:
Summary: Ellen Foster: A Humbling Tale of Determination
Review: We have all heard or read stories about characters from extremely disfunctional families struggling to survive in and out of their broken homes. However, it is a very rare occasion when such a story is portrayed through the eyes of a child, which is what Kaye Gibbons successfully managed to do with this coming of age fiction. Because this story is in first person point of view, the reader truly gets to experience it as if the main character is sitting right in front of them and explaining herself. In fact, the entire novel is written in a childlike form, as seen in everything from Ellen's thoughts and mannerisms to the dialect and lack of punctuation in the book. This can be somewhat confusing at times but, nevertheless, does not take away from the story's essence at all. Aside from the unique writing style used by Gibbons in this account, the story focuses on a young girl, Ellen, who has been exposed to poverty, abuse, neglect, death, drugs, and alcohol. It describes in debth the hardships she faces on the road to happiness and deals with very sensitive issues such as racism, material worth, and the real meaning of family. Due to the irresistable plot of Ellen Foster, it is definately one of the most intriguing and emotional fictions I have ever read. I immediately fell in love with Ellen's mature matter-of-fact attitude towards life along with her strenth, compassion, and determination. This book has helped me to realize how many things I take for granted in life and forced me to look at the world from a different point of view. I strongly recommend anyone to buy, borrow, or checkout this endearing novel.
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Summary: A Tale of the South
Review: Kaye Gibbons displays her southern roots in her first novel, a southern tale of alcoholism, abuse and prejudice entwined with hope, optimism and love. Brilliantly written from a child's perspective, Gibbons writes in Hemingway style with a flair for Flannery O'Connors characterization. Ellen Foster recounts the events that brought her into the Foster Family. She describes her life with her alcoholic daddy and her sickly mama and how at one time she was scared, "Everything was so wrong like somebody had knocked something loose and my family was shaking itself to death." As she narrates her story, Ellen Foster bounces back and forth from her life with her new family where she is happy, comfortable, and loved for the first time in her young life, to her past life where she was abused, rejected and scorned by her real family. She endures the deaths of a mama she loved and a daddy she loathed. From the first line, "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy" to the last line, "And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe. That will always amaze me" the story is captivating and engaging. Wrapped within the bindings of this book are examples of both good and evil within the southern societies. Much like the characters in Flannery O'Connors novels, Gibbons main character exhibits southern innocence, ignorance and charm all in the shape of a little girl, while her mama stirs the image of a weak submissive woman whose main fault is falling in love with an abusive man. Ellen's daddy is lost in alcohol and his only solace is the power he holds over Ellen and her mama. Reminiscent of the antebellum period is mama's mama who owns a cotton farm and seizes control in all situations. Her daughters obtain the fruits of mama's hard work and in the style of southern belles they look down upon those less fortunate than them. A clear picture of the characters develops in the dialogue, which flows like a Hemmingway novel with no quotation marks and no indication to the person speaking. Yet, unlike Hemmingway,this book is easy to read and understand; it offers a view of the southern culture that has been criticized and exonerated over and over for years. Kaye Gibbons has written an excellent first novel that demonstrates her knowledge of life in the south and reveals her talent for storytelling.
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Summary: engrossing story a little girl with a plan
Review: First of all I an quite unused to reading stories that are just over 100 pages long and wondered whether I would get anything out of it. The answer definitely is yes. And it is just long enough to tell the story of Ellen Foster an eleven year old displaced child. I marvelled at this little girl's strength and determination to find love and acceptance. The narration is wonderfully characterised and strong. Ellen was a gritty girl who was going to come out of tragedy as a winner.
Rating:
Summary: Just Love Old Ellen!
Review: Here's my two cents for Ellen Foster - a classical triumph! I read everything Kaye Gibbons writes and just marvel at it all. But, can I just have a word with some of these reviewers about their comments on Ms. Gibbons' punctuation or lack of it? If I couldn't follow a story because of quotation marks, I think I'd keep that little ol' tidbit to myself and not tell the whole world. Know what I mean? Ms. Gibbons has style, y'all. Let's try to raise our bar. If you want another read in this vein, try THE HUNT CLUB by Bret Lott. It's a peach.
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Summary: Didn't know it was an Oprah pick!
Review: When I first bought this novel, I did not know it was an Oprah pick. I probably would not have bought it if I had known, since I'm not too crazy about the books she chooses. I bought this book because I liked the movie with the same name. I have never read a book that was entirely monologue. It is entirely from the viewpoint of this little girl and the miseries she suffered at the hands of her mean old daddy. She referred to herself as "old Ellen", and I guess she was, mentally, pretty old for her young age. There were no quotation marks and dialogue between characters as in all other books I've read, yet it held a sort of charm to me. The author certainly knows how a little girl feels in a situation like Ellen's, and I'm wondering if maybe the author IS Ellen. Of course, I dont' know if this is based on fact, but it sure could be. She was totally disregarded by almost everyone she was around, with the exception of her poor, sick mother who died. Her daddy was an alcoholic and left her for days on end. If it were not for Ellen's little black friend, she would have had no friends. She keeps talking about her new mama and how wonderful the woman is, and then goes back in time when things were completely different. Her new mama goes out and buys more food when they run out. Ellen has a pretty room, and she's just in awe of it. She doesn't even care about going out to play right away, just so she can lay around and love her bedroom. In the past, she shared a bed with her mama, and barely had enough to eat because her daddy was too lazy to work. He just drank and drank until he passed out near the toilet, and Ellen would have to go tell him to get himself out of the bathroom because there were other people who needed to go to the bathroom. She was just wonderful, in my opinion, telling the old geezer just where to get off. I'm happy with the way the book progresses, interweaving the past with the present, and hopefully will be able to see more books by this talented author. I highly recommend this book to everyone, and urge people to buy their copy from Amazon.com if they haven't already read it.
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Summary: Strength and Determination
Review: While reading this book, I saw a very strong, clear thinking, determined and self sufficient child. Her motto of doing it her 'own self' reminded me of my independence as a child. Yet, when I saw the movie, I didn't see an empowered child. I saw a sad story of an abused and abandoned child. I laughed through the book because you couldn't tell Ellen that she wasn't in control. The girl had a plan. Yet the movie left me so choked up that I almost felt bad that I hadn't realized how alone this child was before. I am glad I read the book first. I think the author intended to show this from Ellen's perspective and not the department of children and family services. Oft times, people write off childrens' spirit's and strength and turn them into mindless/feelingless being who need their lives to be decided upon by not so informed adults. Yes, Ellen Foster was a tragic story. But it was also a story of great courage a thinking mind. It was this book that made me a Kaye Gibbons fan !
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