Three Little Words
25 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: adoption, foster, Too Good to be True Nonfiction
Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Published by Athenium, New York, NY 2008
336 pgs.
Recommended age: 14 and up
VOYA rating: 4P, 4Q
This is the story of Ashley Rhodes-Courter and her decade long life living in and out of foster care. As a small child, among alcohol and neglect, Ashley is given up to the custody of the state by her mother. She is told by her mother that they will be together again soon and that this is just a temporary fix. Naive and young, Ashley believes her mother and promises never to love anyone else as much as her and to never to call anyone else ”Mom”. Thus begins Ashley’s long and heartbreaking travel through numerous foster homes and group home facilities.
Ashley spends her childhood and adolescence hoping and praying to have visits with her mother who periodically tends to show up for scheduled visits every now and again. All along Ashley thinks that one day, she will be sent home with her brother to live with her mother once again. It is clear early on that Ashley’s mother was never a good mother and will never truly rehabilitate herself enough to take back her children. It is heartbreaking how selfishly she strings along poor Ashley and preys on her love for her mother.
One particular home is especially hard to handle as the family who has taken on several coster children abuses and neglects the children terribly. Ashley must learn to adapt to each new situation but the situation with this family is the worst one she encounters and includes regular beetings, group baths in dirty waters, lack of privacy and the use of hot sauce and squat thrusts for punishment. Somehoe Ashley survives, is sent to a group orphanage with other chidlren her age who have gone through similarly tramatic childhoods. Ashley eventually is spotted by a family while staying in the orphanage and is sent to their home for a temporary trial to see if they will be a good fit. Ultimately, after a long couple of years, Ashley is officially adopted by her new family and finds her “happy ending”. It shows the foster system in Florida and also talks a alot about the legal system when going through the adoption system.
I found this to be an interesting read but I feel like teens might get a bit bored by all of the legal speak. I find it amazing that she writes such a detailed memoir about all the colorful things that have happened to her. I think a teen would be sucked into her story. I found the legal speak interesting, since I didn’t know anything about gardian at lietems, it just might be a bit much for someone who is maybe 12 years old. I also found it to be a humbly written book that is at times self-depricating to the author. The author writes frankly about her pain and abuse she suffers and about her feelings of abandonment. She was never a martyr or a perfect child. She acted out and rebelled and did horrible things to the wonderful family whom finally give her a loving “forever” home. She talks about other real things that all teens worry about like boys, friends and fitting in. She also calls herself out when she is behaving like a brat or being unreasonable and spoiled. It is also inspiring to see what she was able to do at such a young age and she really became an advocate for her gardient at lietem and successful foster care. Teens who had similar foster care experiences or maybe just a broken home life might be able to relate to her situatuation easily.
I really felt the cover was a nice choice. It is an old photograph of a very young Ashley dressed in a homemade angel costume for Halloween. It is funny because she does some very non-angelic things throughout her childhood while at the same time, is also just a scared little kid. It was a nice photo for the cover since it was a memoir about the author’s life.
I REALLY liked the cover. It was simple, clean yet descriptive. It was very eye catching, especially with the red slash marks across the title. I can see how some might argue that this would just give teens “bad ideas” about dealing with their own stress but the book offer much more than that. The book shows Callie’s journey and growth as she admits that this is something she wants to recover from.
