The Life All Around Me By Ellen Foster [Paperback]

In this sequel to Gibbons’s beloved classicEllen Foster, Ellen, now fifteen, is settled into a permanent home with a new mother. Strengthened by adversity and blessed with enough intelligence to design a salvation for herself, she still feels ill at ease. But while she holds fast to the shreds of her child­hood—humoring her best friend, Stuart, who is determined to marry her; and protecting her old neighbor, slow-witted Starletta—she begins to negotiate her way into a larger world. 
 
With a singular mix of perspicacity, naïveté, and compas­sion, Ellen draws us into her life and makes us fall in love with her all over again.

A sequel to the now-classic Ellen Foster picks up Ellen's life five years later, at 15, with a new mother, a home, a mind too large for her surroundings, and a brave and compassionate integrity.

PRAISE FORTHE LIFE ALL AROUND ME BY ELLEN FOSTER
 
As with the original, the sequel is an inspiring testament to the redeeming power of love and the sustaining power of hope. --The Boston Globe

Classic Ellen, wise in some ways, naive in others, but always original in viewpoint and quite clear about what she intends to make herself. --The San Diego Union-Tribune

A NYONE CONSIDERING MAKING AN UNDERAGE change in life, such as who you're going to live with, should know there's no way to avoid the government getting in on the decision, so try to be kind to the lady they'll send with a stack of tests and try to stay calm and do your best on them. I moved in here three years ago on Christmas Day of 1971, knowing as I knocked on the door that I was choosing this particular replacement for life with my mother because the foster mother, Laura, had the kind of home you'd be out of your mind not to settle into for good.

My family was either dead or crazy, so there wasn't the fall-back of concerned loved ones. In falã&