I chatted with the Chief about my streak of kid lit. She murmured approvingly about the books and suggested The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt. This book made me weep; it was so intense that I'd have to get up and take a break. It's rare in that it is enjoyable and profound. The Library of Congress catalogues this book under child abuse victim, but I'd put under beauty, redemption and nature of the human heart: the depravity and resiliency.
Georgie was never given the chance to be human: his mother forgets to feed him and her boyfriend beats him. He's 8 years old and doesn't know how to read. He hates everybody and almost everything. His refuge from a parent who resents his existence, starvation, beating and a school that's deemed him severely retarded is a library book about flowers. He loves roses: beautiful and safe. A rose had never hurt him.
He wins a shriveled rose plant at a grocery store: he finally has an object to pour out all the love, affection and care that was absent in his life. Shortly after winning the plant, Georgie is beaten so badly with a chair leg that neighbors call the police and the perpetrators jailed. The judge sends Georgie and his rose to a boys school run by Catholic nuns. The school he gets the chance to become human after all his years of living as a wild animal scrounging to survive.
I won't spoil it any more, but it's an amazing story filled with pain and suffering that isn't explained away but redeemed. Georgie has the choice of becoming something other than a victim.
I give this book five stars.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I love this book
And you should too.
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