The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - 3 Stars

" 'Cats don't like to travel,' Mom explained.

Anyone who didn't like to travel wasn't invited on our adventure, Dad said. He stopped the car, grabbed Quixote by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him out the window. Quixote landed with a screeching meow and a thud, Dad accelerated up the road, and I burst into tears. 'Don't be so sentimental,' Mom said. She told me we could always get another cat, and now Quixote was going to be a wild cat, which was much more fun than being a house cat." (18)

This quote basically sums up the Walls' family philosophy. They travel like desert nomads, and the four kids are expected to learn to be independent because they don't get any help from their parents. Rose Mary (an artist, writer, musician, and teacher) and Rex (a drunk, poker player, and "inventor") have quite an odd way of raising their children: "Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us kids when we cried. Fussing over children who cried only encourages them, she told us. That's positive reinforcement for negative behavior" (28). This isn't the half of it. For example, to teach Jeannette (the main character and author) how to swim, her dad let go of her in deep water and told poor Jeannette to "sink or swim." Finally, after practically drowning a few times, just to be thrown back in, she paddles away from her dad. The Walls' parenting methods such as this were part insane and part genius. They often endangered their kids lives while at the same time, the kids learned to be self-sufficient and ultimately became stronger.