Childhood should be filled with birthday parties and sharing secrets with school friends. Knowing that mom and dad are there waiting to hear about her day, food is always available, and safety is taken for granted are hallmarks of childhood.
But some American children have a much different reality. Instead of buying food, parents buy drugs. Instead of cuddling up at night with a stuffed bear, the child waits up all night to make sure mom makes it home from her drug run. And instead of going to the prom, a scared 15-year-old lives on the street. This was the childhood Liz Murray recounts in her story Breaking Night, a Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival and my Journey from Homeless to Harvard.
Plot Summary
Liz Murray's journey begins with drug addicted parents, a prison stint for dad, and a life of poverty and hunger. With criminal parents more interested in the next score than their children, Liz and her sister Lisa were left to fend for themselves. And things would only get worse when her mother was diagnosed with AIDS.
While social workers and teachers tried to reach her, she had no understanding of what they wanted her to do. Because the world she inhabited was so different from theirs, she had a hard time relating to their demands to go to school, clean up, or learn to be something different than she was.
When she became homeless at the age of 15 she entered yet another world of despair; yet she also found love and a type of family among the other homeless teens. Then one day, she discovered the phrase "what if?" What if she could change her life? What if there was something more?
The thought that there may be something different from what she had always known sent her on a mission to change her life. And with the sheer determination that many want but few possess, and the dedicated help from adults who could see her for who she could be, she went from barely literate homeless teen to a scholarship winning Harvard bound student.
Compliments and Criticism
The most shocking thing about this story is that it was written in 2009, by someone who was born in 1980. This isn't a story about a person who grew up in the 1960s, before society knew the damage of the drug culture or in the 1920s before social programs came into being. This is a story about someone who is the same age as many readers' children or even the readers themselves.
That Liz Murray could have survived her upbringing at all is remarkable. That she could have done all she has accomplished in such a short time is almost unbelievable. That both she and her sister Lisa overcame the disaster that was their childhood is a true testament to the ability of children to overcome almost anything.
Murray's story, told in plain, matter of fact prose, catches the reader from word one and doesn't let go. What could easily have become a plea for sympathy instead becomes a simple story of a life lived outside the boundaries of normality. But for the reader who grew up in a middle class life, the challenges she faced seem almost insurmountable. That she has accomplished so much, in so few years, makes for an outstanding read.
Breaking Night, a Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival and my Journey from Homeless to Harvard
Liz Murray
Hyperion Books
New York
ISNB 978-0-7868-6891-9
2010
Kelly Sharp - Kelly Sharp holds a Master's degree in Education and a Bachelor's degree in Communication, and has been involved in training in a variety ...
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