Getting ready for college.

I've been a bit busy the last few days. I have a summer reading assignment for college. The book I'm reading is called Ellen Foster. From what I can tell, it is set in the rural South in the early 1960s, due to a mention of Castro. Racism still runs rampant and the heroine, Ellen, was raised with the belief that sharing anything, such as a cup with an African-American will make her sick. A friend of hers is African-American, though, and is dirt poor to the point of literally eating dirt. She spends the night at their house, and she realizes in the morning that "it did not feel like a colored house." Ellen's mother dies near the beginning, and her grandmother and her father don't get along.

One thing about the writing of the book itself is that Kaye Gibbons wrote the text in "state of mind" or whatever it was. There is no punctuation in the book except for periods and question marks. If you've read my previous posts, you'd know how my Mom raised me as a punctuation stickler. The lack of punctuation in this book is making me a bit dizzy.

Anyway, after finishing the book, I have to write an essay about what Ellen's teen years will be like. This is my plan so far: As she is 11 in the early 60s, she will be a teenager during the civil rights movement. I think she may not understand why they are rebelling so suddenly. I will have to read more to see what side she would be on.