I Am Fifteen--And I Don't Want to Die

By Christine Arnothy and Christine Anthony

Book Overview

Set against the stark but seductive landscape of the American Southwest, the stories in All My Relations explore the inner landscape of mind and heart, where charting the simplest course is subject to a complex constellation of relationships. In the title story of the collection, a Pima Indian hires on with a rancher in an attempt to quit drinking and to win back the wife and son who have left him. His efforts to master land and horses and to bake the perfect cake mirror his efforts to subdue his own demons and to embrace a peaceful domesticity. In "The Big Bang and the Good House", Tony, a former drug dealer, pits his urge toward chaos against the orderly pleasures of marriage, finally yielding to the solidity and spaciousness of domestic love: "I feel myself gathering weight, density. Cautiously, I allow myself to inhabit this Good House, which surprisingly fits like my own body". Julia, the aging protagonist of "Simplifying", risks her fragile health in a love affair; her generosity of spirit toward her lover is matched in inverse proportion by the frugality with which her lover doles out his affections. In "The March of the Toys", a young woman flees Delaware, her chronically ill father, and her grieving mother, only to find that she's traded the neediness of her family for the harrowing disturbances of her lovers. She muses, "I couldn't affect anyone's life. I could only attend it". In "Hualapai Dread", an investment broker's infatuation with an enigmatic Hualapai Indian woman, as elusive as she is beautiful, brings out his most predatory instincts and unmasks her own deceit. Acting on similar but more destructive impulses toward the object of his sexual obsession, a character in another story takes his soon-to-be ex-wife on a bizarre "honeymoon for divorce". The close-knit family of "Builders" breaks under the strain of constructing their dream house with their own hands, and eventually they are forced to leave behind the illusion of safety and permanence: "Once the three had imagined themselves as a house on a hill, dug into stone with the tenacity of a lion. Now they sat tensely in canvas-backed chairs stretched like slingshots. They talked cautiously, with encouragement, hoping for the return of pleasure". Embodying the transience and openness of the New West, the characters in All My Relations reinvent themselves, even as they struggle with the age-old, perilous necessity of loving.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590403222
• ISBN13: 9780590403221
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Scholastic, Incorporated
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Moving tale

Ms. Arnothy's story of a part of her youth during WWII is a well written account, giving the readers a first hand taste of what it was like to wait out air raids and wonder where your next meal is coming from. At the end, I wanted this book to keep going, to see how she finished out the war.

Great book

This is a great book for pre-teens and teens to read. I read it in 8th grade when I was 13, I was so upset at what she had to go through because of a war, I thought it was wrong that her family, her house, and friends all had to go through that and it made me greatful of what I have. I think this is a great book for anyone to read.

Help - I Am Too Young to Die

Bang! Bombs went off just feet from the cellar. Cold, dark, and destroyed, families huddled together in the basement of their bombed-out apartment building. I Am Fifteen - And Don't Want To Die is an extraordinary autobiography by Christine Arnothy. Christine is fiftee, living in Budapest, Hungary duriny World War II. She's growing up,, living in the middle of a war-torn city. her family is struggling to help others and to stay alive themselves. Really the only place to get water is across the road. Christine is horrified of getting bombed, while getting the water they desperately need. Throughout the many days Christine, her family and other families spent in the cellar, their world overhead was, being ddestroyed by raging bombs. They could only come out at desperate times. Her family needs to get out of the middle of this war, but when will they go, and how will they get out? Most of all where will they go? I liked this particular autobiography because it is about Christine's hard times in life. Some books I've read about difficulties in life didn't seem real to me, but because this is a true story I could really get into it. I felt sorry for her because compared to her life, my life is perfect. The way Christine wrote this book was very interesting, she wrote this book from old diaries she kept when she went through all of these struggles. I likes the description, it is another reason why I liked this book so much. she describes the scenes she sees with great enthusiam. Like the day when she finds a wounded enemy soilder, I felt as if I was sanding right next to her looking over him. Christine is a quiet girl, who tends to keep to herself. She also needs her parents and friends to comfort her, expecially now, living in the cellar. Her story was a heart pumping adventure. She learned mant lessons about life and death. She lived to tell about her experience, the horror of living in the middle of a war-torn city.

Difficult, but memorable

I read this book many times, between the ages of 12 and 15, and I still think about it as an adult (I am 32 as I type this). I read a lot of books about teenaged girls in WWII and this was one of the most real. When I traveled around Europe a few years ago, I made it a point to visit Budapest mainly because of the impression made on me by this book. It's a difficult read, but well worth the effort, for a unique perspective on a difficult war.