condygurl's review
3.0
This was not believable as written from a 10-year-old's perspective. Since it was a book told in the present, the child no matter how precocious would not use some of the terminologies she uses or have the thoughts she had. Very few times did I think oh yeah that's a 10-year-old. Now I say that as the mother of 5 children, 1 who was home educated at a much higher level of standard than his age-appropriate peers. A 10-year-old no matter how precocious is still a 10-year-old with their thought processes and problem-solving skills.
Now Vanessa is supposed to be visually impaired, yet many times she is noticing small details or watching as someone runs into the middle of the street to gather horse manure. She can see the details of the small room with all the different medicines, pills, bandages for her father. So I had a hard time believing she was visually impaired to the degree that it caused a disability enough to stop her from going to school even in 1949.
Now that being said, the story itself moves along quite slowly. We meet each of her family members through her eyes. Vanessa is intelligent, and charming due to her home education. She is polite to adults which is a skill many children today sadly lack.
Other than that the book was enjoyable if you overlooked the various issues I raised. And I give it a solid 3 stars. If this was written as a memoir of Vanessa as an adult then I think I would have found it more enjoyable, but that through the eyes of a child aspect really spoiled the story for me because she was far too adult for even a precocious 10-year-old.
Now Vanessa is supposed to be visually impaired, yet many times she is noticing small details or watching as someone runs into the middle of the street to gather horse manure. She can see the details of the small room with all the different medicines, pills, bandages for her father. So I had a hard time believing she was visually impaired to the degree that it caused a disability enough to stop her from going to school even in 1949.
Now that being said, the story itself moves along quite slowly. We meet each of her family members through her eyes. Vanessa is intelligent, and charming due to her home education. She is polite to adults which is a skill many children today sadly lack.
Other than that the book was enjoyable if you overlooked the various issues I raised. And I give it a solid 3 stars. If this was written as a memoir of Vanessa as an adult then I think I would have found it more enjoyable, but that through the eyes of a child aspect really spoiled the story for me because she was far too adult for even a precocious 10-year-old.
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