Learning to Think by Tracy King

I very rarely read non fiction but the photo on the front of this book called to something in me. I read it with tears rolling down my face more than once. I feel like we need to tear up the curriculum in school, burn the Shakespeare and have kids read this true story of being broken and learning to fix yourself instead. I will never forget Tracy's brave bold story. She writes with honesty, never embellishing or lingering in the dark, but always looking forward to the light.

From the back

When you have nothing, you cling to whatever gives you hope.

Put yourself in Tracy King's shoes. Growing up in an ordinary council estate outside Birmingham; a house filled with creativity, curiosity and love, but marked by her father's alcoholism and her mother's agoraphobia.

By the time she turns twelve her father has been killed, her sister taken into care and her mother ensnared by the promises of born-again Christianity.

This isn't the stuff of cult documentaries; this is the story of an ordinary family trapped in a broken system. It's a story that could happen to anyone without the tools to transform their circumstances. And it's the story of how Tracy found her way out.

A shocking, inspiring and ultimately hopeful memoir that holds up a mirror to the everyday realities of living in poverty, it is also a testament to the power of books and to learning to question our world.