The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt

A Review for Youby Volleyball-chick

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September 17, 2009: The lottery rose is a book about a seven year old boy that is abused by his mother and her boyfriend. Trough all his trial he has to learn to hide and handle his hurt. In the beginning Georgie is constantly getting in trouble. He is in second grade for the second time and has the same teacher. All the teachers hate Georgie except for the librarian. She teaches him how to love by showing him flowers. After a hard beating Georgie almost dies and the police then move him to a nun school and he has to hide his beating s and life s history. From then on it is a twisted journey through this young child's life.

Wow, this book is really cool!!by Anonymous

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March 26, 2009: "The Lottery Rose"

If you're looking for a book filled with adventure, life lessons, amazing characters with extraordinary personalities, and a touching sob story, then the amazing realistic fiction story, I have the perfect book for you. It's called "The Lottery Rose", written by Irene Hunt.

The Lottery Rose is about a boy named Georgie, the main character, who is abused by his mother and her boyfriend. Because of his parent's extreme behavior, Georgie's life at school is affected as well. He is mean and he has no friends. The teachers don't like Georgie, especially because he can't read. Although the teachers hate him, the librarian is fond of Georgie. She always lends him a book about flowers. Since he can't read, the book had to be a picture book. Georgie loves flowers because they bring him a sense of peace in his miserable life. His whole life changes when one day, he wins a rose bush in the local grocery store's lottery.

One day Georgie is taken away, and he meets Mrs. Harper. He first notices her because of her colorful garden across the street. One night he decided to plant his rose bush their, but Mrs. Harper yelled and threatened to burn it. She doesn't want people to be in her garden because she used to share it with her husband, who died in a car accident a few years ago along with her son Paul.

Georgie also meets Mrs. Harper's living son, Robin. Robin is mentally retarded and can't read, speak, or walk very well, even though he is old enough to. Georgie befriends Robin because he understands him. Georgie also reminded Robin of his dead brother Paul. Because of this, Robin enjoys spending time with Georgie. His favorite thing to do is feed the ducks by the lake, and he loves it when Georgie takes him.

The story first starts out in Tampa, Florida, a state for fun in the sun. That wasn't the case for Georgie, he hated it there. He wasn't comfortable at his small apartment or at his school. Once they taken him away though, he finds safety and comfort. He's taken to a school, owned and ran by nuns. The building was run down, but he liked it there. He spent a lot of his time visiting his rose bush across the street in Mrs. Harper's bright garden.

Irene hunt explains in this touching story, that everyone deserves to be loved. It shows you that some people may have lives worse than you can imagine and that it's important to be kind towards everyone, no matter how they react. The Lottery Rose is about being strong and standing through pain. It's about learning to receive love, and give it. Through so much sadness, it's always important to keep people close. It showed me that some of those mean and rude people out there are just like that because there might be nobody to love them. I learned that everyone deserves to be treated with kindness.

The first good thing that happens to Georgie in the story is that he participates in the local grocery store lottery and wins a rose bush. He then spends all day running around the city trying to find the perfect place to plant his prize. When it begins to get dark outside and a storm comes in, Georgie returns home. That was the night his mother and step dad were caught abusing him. At first, he stayed with the neighbors for a few weeks. Although they liked him, they didn't have the money to take care of him.

They held a court case and sent him off to the nun's school where he learned what it meant to be loved and have friends.

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