The novel, The Glass Castle, is an extremely moving story about Jeannette Walls, and how she grew up in a poverty-stricken family.

At the age of three, Jeannette was cooking her own dinner -- hot dogs. She burned herself severely, and her parents rushed her to the hospital. She loved it there. It was clean, quiet, and she was looked after by caring nurses. After spending weeks in the hospital, her father unhooked all of her cords, grabbed her up in his arms, and he ran to the car, where her mother, and her siblings were waiting. They didn’t pay, they didn’t check out. They were on the run.

She spent her whole life on the run. Whenever the bills caught up with them, they “skedaddled.” One day, Jeannette was talking to her older sister, and they couldn’t even remember all of the different places they had lived.

This novel gives a perspective to the life most of us at Rocklin High live.

Jeannette grew up hungry, cold, with an alcoholic as a father, and a flake as a mother.

One time, when her family had earned enough money to buy a ham, they were forced to leave it on a counter for a week, because they couldn’t afford electricity for a refrigerator. When she went to go cut herself a slice for dinner, she found white worms crawling through it. When she asked her mom what to do her mom told her to cut off the maggots, because the ham was still good to eat. So she did.

Her family went through periods where they ate popcorn for three weeks, grapes for three weeks, cabbage for three weeks, or they didn’t have any food at all.

After reading this book, I realized that poverty exists -- not just on the homelessness level, but so close to it.

What still puzzled me is that people who can’t afford to feed their current children, have more children. Why would they do that? And after reading this book, from the perspective of one of those children, I realized that no matter where someone comes from, they can succeed if they are bright and work hard, and can thrive if they know that they are loved, despite being left to fend for themselves sometimes.

Jeannette’s mother said that she let her kids raise themselves to make them better people. And in some cases, neglect doesn’t make good people. But, in this case, everyone ended up happy. That, in itself is amazing, and this inspirational book is a must-read.