Work 1 - Description
South Carolina, 1940's. A farmer's daughter marries her father's hired hand and the two of them have a child who will grow up on her own. As a toddler, her mother left her in the care of strangers and removed her from that home at age six bringing her into a world of poverty and poor choices. Her mother struggled to support herself and her child, working in the daytime at a drugstore and at a bar at night. Paulette spent nights alone in their apartment leafing through her mother's True Confession Magazines and listening to 78 rpm records, dancing with her shadow. This is the true story of her mother’s trial-and-error approach to parenting, her choices, and the ways they affected her daughter.
In a collection of expressive free verse, Whitehurst shares her memories of her upbringing. By the time she was 16, she had never read a book cover to cover until an English teacher encouraged her to read with a few kind words, her history teacher taught her to think for herself, and another English teacher encouraged her to write.
Living a childhood of loneliness and emotional abuse, until she found her voice and the road to her future as an influential and award-winning teacher. Her powerful, honest, yet loving memoir demonstrates the power of a teacher's words and their effect on a young life.
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