The Story of Tracy Beaker

Little Tracy, I really hope my daughter won’t turn out to be like you if I have one in the future. As you can understand from the title, the story is about a little girl called Tracy Beaker, who drove me crazy while I was reading the book. You may ask why, it’s because she’s a very sad girl, telling lies and bullying others. But then when you think, she does that to protect herself from others. Her mother is away, no one knows where she is. She’s a famous movie star according to Tracy, but you don’t want to believe her, because it’s just one of the lies she tells all the time. As I stated in the beginning, my first impression on this book was not very nice, yet again, one has to remember that it is a book for children. You have to take that into account when you read these types of books. So let me revise it.

Tracy is very lonely, she lives in an orphanage, she doesn’t get along well with the other kids, her mother’s location is unknown but she hopelessly waits for her to come get her. Sad, isn’t it? However, she does anything to make the reader not like her. To start with, she lies about anything almost all the time. However, you have to have an adult perspective to understand that she’s lying. An ordinary child will easily believe what she’s saying because the lies are hidden in the lines. She doesn’t say she can fly or she can teleport, she says her mother is a star. What’s not to believe that, right? But you don’t if you pay attention to the language. One other thing what makes me dislike Tracy is that she bullies other children at the orphanage, but then you understand why she does it after a while. Whenever she trusts someone, she ends up getting hurt, so she doesn’t know how to behave among people anymore, if she acts like herself, she is sure she’ll get hurt. Yet again, no matter how frustrated with her as I was reading the book, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Imagine how you would behave if you didn’t have parents to teach you how to behave. She doesn’t know what to do because no one taught her how. She’s trying to find her own way by herself, which is heartbreaking. I think she’d fit in the ‘false identity’ category.

Still, there are some flaws in the book. There’s not a certain storyline in the book. Nothing exciting happens that makes you want to read on. And I must admit it has the worst ending ever. When I finished reading it, I couldn’t understand it, I thought I was missing a few pages at the end. After putting up with Tracy all story long, you just want to hear something developing. I expected her mother to show up for instance, or Tracy to make new friends and be happier for a change. None of these happened. Then we had the discussions in the classroom, it doesn’t have to have a satisfying ending, even more there doesn’t have to have chapters in which a different event takes place. Even though I understand that, it’s not enough to make me like this book.

The Catcher in the Rye and The Wrasp Factory also have common aspects with The Story of Tracy Beaker. We see that parents are not portrayed very nice in the books. Main character in The Catcher in the Rye leaves home to go to New York. His behaviors are very grown up. Main character in The Wrasp Factory is even worse, he comes from a crazy family and he says he killed 3 children. Again, this is not very believable as it is in Tracy’s case, you somehow get the feeling that he’s lying.

Lastly, the book is certainly suitable for children, I would say children of ages 7-12. I’m sure they’d like it since they would read it with a different point of view. But I’ve got to admit, no matter how sad I felt for Tracy, I was really relieved when I finished reading the book.

Twilight

Here is another book left in shadows because of the movie. To be honest I don’t care about that, because I simply hate both the book and the movie. Well, hate is a strong word, let’s just say I don’t like them. One of the reasons why I don’t like them is because I’m having a hard time to understand why a mediocre book like this has become such phenomenon all around the world. What is it that attracts people to it that much? The storyline is okay, but I don’t think it is written in a literary way. I just can’t consider this book as a literary piece.

The story is about Bella and Edward’s romance. Edward is a vampire and Bella is human, she is not like other teenagers as her own age, she’s more mature and she enjoys the solitude. I guess she fits in the ideology of a ‘Divided Self’, which is something we’ve all been through when we were teenagers. That may sound cute, but it actually is not. Because their relationship is a good bit weird. I actually really enjoy reading and watching vampire themed stories. But vampires I know cannot walk in the sunshine, if they do, they will burn. They usually sleep in a coffin and they are often cruel creatures and see themselves superior to human race because they are stronger. We don’t see that in Twilight. I think this book is for those who don’t like vampire books. Because Edward is described as really kind, sentimental and doesn’t feed on humans, falls in love with a human. That’s why this story doesn’t appeal to me, it doesn’t feel real at all. To me, whole vampire thing takes a back seat, because love is more important. Maybe that’s what it should be considering this is a teenager book.

I had not come to realize till the discussion we had in the classroom how Edward treats Bella. He has the control of the relationship and it seems Bella likes it. She’s described as clumsy, not very pretty, and somewhat unable. First you think why a vampire handsome as Edward is attracted to Bella, but then it all makes sense, she’s easy to control. He climbs up her window and watches her sleep. That is super creepy. There’s no privacy at all. Is it a healthy relationship? Of course not. But I think the reason why Bella and Edward get together is that they both have old souls. Edward is more than a hundred years old, and Bella acts like she is a grandma. Even her father knows it and asks him to go out and date someone, have some fun, act like a teenage girl. She is portrayed as lost and unhappy young girl, looking for salvation by her prince charming.

One other thing I can’t help noticing is that the lack of information about Edward’s family. They are mentioned yes, but they don’t have any significant role on the story. Same thing goes for Bella’s parents. This is one of the aspects of first love books, family does not carry much of a significance.

I wouldn’t be wrong if I said this book was for all ages since it’s such a phenomenon in the world. It can’t be only teens that like this book. Maybe if I read this book 5 or 6 years ago, I’d like it, because I would be focusing on love then. It’s amazing how points of views can change within a few years. All in all, I can easily say I don’t like this book but it’s suitable for young readers.