This is an amazing novel that pulls on your heart strings. The entire time I was reading this book I really felt for Lonnie. It made me feel good to know that he found comfort in writing. I know he is a fictional character but his problems are ones that real children may be experiencing or experienced. I want to incorporate writing into my classroom to hopefully provide children the same safe haven Lonnie found in writing.
For the first fifty pages of this novel I thought Lonnie was a girl. This could be due to my schema with the name Lonnie. Every Lonnie I know is a girl so I was fairly surprised to find out that she was in fact a he. I could not imagine the pain that this young boy is feeling. He lost his mother, father and in a way his sister. He knows that not many families want to adopt or house a boy who is his age and he was bounced around from church family to church family until there were no more families. He lives a with a women who tells him to be quiet which is what turns him toward writing. Miss.Edna does, in a way, show Lonnie love. She continues to house and feed him and allows him to come along on her trips to see her sons. I believe that Miss Edna's son, Rodney, has a great influence on Lonnie's life. He has no adult male figure to look up to and Rodney is very accepting of him calling him his little brother.
I am surprised that the foster care system would not do its best to keep Lonnie and Lili together. They are lucky they live relatively close to each other. She is the only family he has left. I love the innocence of Lili's thought process. She believes that if he finds God they will be together. If Lonnie can finish the bible and find Him they will be allowed to see each other everyday. Little does she know life is more complicated then that.
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