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Introduction & Overview of Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

This Study Guide consists of approximately 82 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Ellen Foster.
This section contains 246 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
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Ellen Foster Introduction

When Kaye Gibbons published Ellen Foster in 1987, the novel-her first-met with an enthusiastic audience. Critics admired Gibbons's skillful creation of Ellen's narrative voice, acknowledging its accuracy in representing a child's point of view. Gibbons won two literary awards for Ellen Foster, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. While some readers criticized the events of the novel as being melodramatic, others asserted that Ellen's wisdom, resilience, and tenacity save her narrative from becoming a sentimental tearjerker. Gibbons has said that some of the events of the novel-Ellen mother's suicide and Ellen's subsequent movement from one relative's home to another-reflect her own childhood experiences. Ellen is indeed a lonely child, quietly observing the happiness of other families, yearning to belong, and making mental notes about what her perfect family should be like. Ellen Foster is ultimately a coming-of-age story, as Ellen engineers...
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This section contains 246 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
Purchase our Ellen Foster Study Guide
Copyrights
Ellen Foster from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.
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