The Problem with Forever
by
Jennifer L. Armentrout
I read this book (an ARC-Advance Readers Copy) in just two days time. It was so engaging and so much like so many kids, whom I love and/or have loved, lives. I do not want to give any part of the story away, because you need to start at the beginning and settle into the story for yourself. I will tell you though that this is a story of survival, of not giving up, of friendship, love, hope, victory and a view of foster care that is all to real and all to common today. This book is a work of fiction, however it is true to life, the things in the book happen. They happen more than we even realize, know or acknowledge. This is marked to YA, and as a romance book, I think anyone grade 7 and up could read it and benefit greatly from reading. As for foster care: Our system is broken, children are suffering greatly. We need to fix it.
At the end of the book The Velveteen Rabbit story is quoted, and it is the perfect fit for the conclusion of the story.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
