Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is awful & ironically, the message is to hold on to the golden beauty & innocence of childhood even if you're in a tough place, but it is so violent, the irony is that if you let a child read it, it will do exactly the opposite & take away their golden innocence. here are examples: page 5 - detailed account of being attacked, held down, gagged, beaten 32 - boy receives regular beatings from his father (one example was “with a 2 by 4”) 32 - a friend is bloody, beat and left for dead in a field 56- first hand description of drowning “electric chair” is mentioned a lot (I don’t think Madeline knows what this is yet) 59 - references a guy having sex in the bedroom (inference) 111 - teen girl gets pregnant, sent to live with Grandma (inference) page 45 - a girl named “Cherry” is sort of made to get in a car with drunk boys & go home with them. …or else there’ll be a fight. 115 - a brief image of “leaving little kids to burn to death in a fire” 154 - describes briefly how the police bullets hit the body of their friend & he crumples to the ground. also, stealing, smoking joints/cigarettes, “kill myself”, running away, murder, description of death, etc. Awful book that does not make the world a better place.