"The Glass Castle’’ is both fascinating and terrifying. Jeannette Walls tells her memoir unflinchingly about growing up dirt poor, sometimes homeless, with two creative but irresponsible parents.

Walls opens her story recalling her earliest recollection as a 3-year-old trying to make hotdogs because she was hungry. When her dress catches on fire, she receives severe burns and spends several weeks in the hospital. After she comes home and once again is hungry, she decides again to make herself a hotdog. When her mother finds her over the stove cooking, she tells Jeannette, “Good for you. You’ve got to get right back in the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire.’’

That attitude aptly sums up how Jeannette’s parents, Rose Mary and Rex Walls, raised their children. They wanted their brood to be self-reliant, and often reminded them that “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.’’ As a parent I often cringed reading this book, but yet I couldn’t stop reading. Rex Walls was clearly brilliant, yet he couldn’t hold down a job and provide for his family. Eventually alcohol took over his life. Rose Mary also was extremely creative, and all she wanted to do was paint and write. Although they loved their children in their own way, traditional parenting skills were non-existent. Yet the Walls children were very intelligent, and learned at a very young age how to fend for themselves.

“The Glass Castle’’ is a classic example of how truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. This is a compelling read, and I highly recommend it. Then read Walls’ next book, “Half Broke Horses,’’ a true-life novel based on her mother’s mother, Lily Casey Smith.

Reviewed by Jo

Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search?formids=target&lang=eng&suite=def&reservedids=lang%2Csuite&submitmode=&submitname=&target=glass+castle+walls