Connections

In this book they have moved around alot through out the country. They had lived in places from Arizona all the way to West Virgina where they are currently living. I think that it would be interesting to have lived in such diverse places with differant people like they did, but their reasons for moving i would not want. They move around because her parents dont have a steady job and they are just trying to make ends meet; so they sometimes have to bail out of a town when the debts get too high. Her father Rex is an alcoholic and wastes alot of their money on booze, and her mother is a quirky artist who spends alot on her art supplies. She has three siblings, one older and two younger, so her parents have four mouths to feed when they dont even have a steady job. Even though they dont have a near to perfect life they handle the situation well and Jeanette and her brother always find something fun to do and thats what i admire about Jeanette.

Even though i have only lived in Mason my whole life and dont have those kind of parents, i can stillrelate to this story because i do alot of traveling. i have been all across the west to places like Arizone(which was Jeanettes favorite place to live) and New Mexico, ive traveled up north to Maine and south to Florida, but my favorite vacations have been out of the country. I like out of the country vacations so much better because you get to experiance a whole new culture unlike american. I recently went to the Bahamas and everything was so differant, and since ive never been there i had so many interesting new things to do. And thats how id like to picture how Jeanette viewed their circumstances when they always moved around, a new adventure with new experiances. She also liked animals, exept for the fat rat in Welch, and so do I. She always found new pets in the places she moved to and i also encountered alot of new animals. While in the Bahamas we swam with animals like dolphins, sea lions, sting rays, and even sharks, and now I get why she loved new pets. So even though my family and Jeanettes family are completely differant, we still share similarities and can connect to eachother.

Living In Welch

Right now in the book they are the poorest they probably have been so far in the book. They were living with their grandmother in a samll town named Welch in West Virginia but after the grandma tried to molest her younger brother and they started fighting her they were forced to move out. the house they moved into doesnt have any running water that means no showers, no running toilets, no faucets, or anything like that. they only have electricity when they pay for the gas bill which isnt that often. Now there also happens to be a hole in the ceiling which they have tried to patch up, but did not do that good of a job at. And to make matters worse they also arent fiting in well at that school, it is a very weird town and the kids dont like new people.

If i were jeanette i would have a hard time adjusting to that situation. I think that it was a good thing that they moved out from their grandmas house though. She was abusive and you could tell she didnt love them like a grandma should, she wouldnt even let them call her grandma, they had to call her by her first name which was Erma. She also made them stay in the basement and if they talked too loud-talking loud to her was anything over a whisper- she would yell and threaten them. Also lets not forget that she tried to molest Brian until Jeanette noticed and stoped her.

But now their situation isnt the best either but their trying to make the best out of the situation, like Jeanette usually does. Their school also is full of bullies who used to beat up Jeanette everyday, that is until she helped the "leaders" neighbor and they stoped picking on her. I think that its very conserning that that can all go on, the bullying, the grandma, and now the house. I think they are pretty tough to make it through all that.