Blackbird: A Childhood Lost And Found

Additional Blackbird: A Childhood Lost And Found Information

With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away.

The house on Mary Street was home to Jennifer; her older brother B.J.; their hardworking father, who smelled like aftershave and read her Snow White; and their mother, who called her little daughter Sunshine and embraced Jackie Kennedy's sense of style. Through a child's eyes, the skies of Carson City were forever blue, and life was perfect -- a world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles.

Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with hairspray, powder, and a kiss on the cheek...But soon, everything Jennifer has come to love and rely on begins to crumble, sending her on a roller coaster of loss and loneliness. In a world unhinged by tragedy, where beautiful mothers die and families are warped by more than they can bear, a young girl must transcend a landscape of pain and mistreatment to discover her richest resource: her own unshakable will to survive.

What Customers Say About Blackbird: A Childhood Lost And Found:

I really enjoyed this book and blew through it in a few days. My only complaint (and why I didn't give it 5 stars) was that I feel the author made herself wayyy to smart for her age throughout the book. It was a memoir, so maybe she was smart, but I just felt that the way she portrayed herself in the book was always smarter and more quick witted than the majority of kids her age are.Other than that the book was great. I would definitely recommend it.

This book took me completely by surprise. I'm glad that I found it. Found it in my small local library while just browsing and looking for something different. It was soo wonderful. Talks of the author's childhood, if you can call it that. Recommending it to many.

Moving her furniture will never go out of my head and how Deb treats her clean to the end, is so pitiful, that I would like to find her and let her know how cruel, self centered and pathethic person she was in Jennifer's life. I easily put myself in her place, since my childhood was so dysfunctional and it too, seemed like no-one even noticed or was aware of my plight to survive. Jennifer Lauck's story "Blackbird", is an easy read, except for all the emotions it stirred up. This was a hard book to put down and I am glad I read it, knowing that it was all true. I was lucky though, to have a fantastic mother living under the same conditions and we stuck together. Jennifer's life was so sad; imagine feeling like no-one loves you or even cares. Much better writing than most books I come across. God loves you, Jennifer, and in the end, that is all that counts.

When another tragedy befalls the Lauck family, things go from bad to worse. Told through the perspective of the child that she was, Jennifer tells of the harrowing six years of her life from the ages of 5 to 11.Five year old Jennifer is living with her parents and older brother Bryan. Blackbird is the story of Jennifer Lauck's childhood, which is reflected in the sub-title- A Childhood Lost and Found. Although there is some abuse in the book, it is far more psychological than physical and quite disturbing. It is obvious that Janet, Jennifer's mother is in the end stages of a long illness, and Jennifer takes care of her mom as best she can at her young age. In the course of time Janet Lauck passes away, and the children are left with their father, a kind but overwhelmed man; he quickly remarries a woman with children of her own, who obviously does not care for Jennifer or Bryan at all. The indomitable spirit of Jennifer to keep on going, despite it all, is what lifts this book from maudlin to inspiring. The child's eye view of the adult world is heartbreaking at times, but you will care about this little girl and root for her right until the end, hoping someone or something good comes her way.

I couldn't put this book down and read it in two days. There is already many great reviews of it on here, so I will just say, READ IT. Still Waters is the follow-up to this book and while I didn't enjoy it quite as much, it was still a great read.