The Glass Cafe: Or the Stripper and the State; How My Mother Started a War with the System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit

I laughed all through this book and I'm an adult (although my wife sometimes will disagree with that). It is somewhat of a farce, but tells a great, funny story. The story of a mother doing what it takes to raise and defend her son is told from the son's viewpoint. Although the mother is a stripper and the son does draw some nude dancers, there are no descriptions of nudity in the book. Those who are looking for that as a reason not to let their kids read the book won't find it. Read it, you'll laugh. (Unless you're a total prude.)

Twelve-year-old Tony Henson is a skilled artist and his mother Alice is an exotic dancer at the Kitty Kat Club. Inspired by the backstage life of the club, Tony starts accompanying his mother to work and draws pictures of the dancers there. He gives some of the drawings to Ms. Klein, his art teacher. She thinks they are wonderful and submits them in an art contest. One day while getting ready for work, Alice receives a call from the state government. The Social Services Agency has seen her son's pictures and are accusing her of letting Tony draw pornographic pictures of naked women. A few days later, she is arrested. Will Alice be proven to be an innocent and responsible mother, or will she be sent to jail? If you enjoy reading books about family relationships that are complex and laced with issues that you may never excounter, but make you think, be sure to read THE GLASS CAFE to find out what happens to Tony and his mother! --- Reviewed by Ashley Hartlaub

" I think this book is great! If you read a chapter of it you'll have to keep reading because this is a pageturner and this is the best book I ever read. I think everyone my age (10) should read this book because it's so exiting and interesting and Tony (the main character) is a good artist and I like to draw also so I chose this book not knowing that I would finish it so quickly. I loved this book!"

"So you know my name is Tony and I am twelve and my mother who is named Alice except nobody calls her that, they all call her Al, like she was a guy only she isn't, is a stripper, only it's called exotic dancing, at a place called the Kitty Kat, except that everybody calls it the Zoo on account of an animal act they used to have but don't anymore because the humane society said it was wrong to use snakes out of their "natural element" although Muriel, who danced with a seven-foot boa named Steve, swore that the snake slept through the whole dance except I know Steve who lives in the dressing room in a glass case and I can't tell if he's sleeping or not because he never closes his eyes." THE GLASS CAFÉ (or THE STRIPPER AND THE STATE; How My Mother Started a War With The System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous), is such a captivating read aloud--truly a performance piece--that I have half a mind to return this morning for my third day of the IRA (International Reading Association) Convention and take a group of teachers (preferably middle school teachers) hostage so that I can have another audience with whom to share it. Fortunately, we have free nighttime minutes on our cellphone--Shari woke me up a little past midnight my/Orlando time (9:00 PM her/California time), which is when the free minutes begin, and like a jack-in-the box I bounced up out of bed, switched on the light, scooped up the book, and read twenty pages with nary a breath. This review will end shortly since, if I hurry, I can reach the Convention Center as they begin queuing up for the 9:00 opening time of the Exhibition Hall and corner a small crowd. "I like school where I get pretty good grades in everything except gym and sometimes math when it doesn't make any sense to me like when we have to figure out two trains traveling at different speeds and which one will get to a place called Parkerville first. There is never a place called Parkerville in real life and hardly any trains go anywhere anymore and why would two trains be trying to get to a place called Parkerville in the first place? It's just silly." Tony, the twelve-year-old narrator of THE GLASS CAFÉ (or THE STRIPPER AND THE STATE; How My Mother Started a War With The System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous), lives in Los Angeles, has a friend named Waylon, a girl he likes named Melissa, a penchant for dogs (which aren't allowed in their apartment building), and is an aspiring artist who "draws every chance I get." As he tells us the tale of what happened to him and Al, he includes a number of asides, explaining to us what he is doing in regard to his English teacher's instructions about writing a story: "I'll talk more about that later after I do what Ms. Providge the English teacher calls 'developing the structure and character of the story.' And I expect that adults who grab this book for a look, suspicious of having their middle school offspring read something with "STRIPPER" in the

"So you know my name is Tony and I am twelve and my mother who is named Alice except nobody calls her that, they all call her Al, like she was a guy only she isn't, is a stripper, only it's called exotic dancing, at a place called the Kitty Kat, except that everybody calls it the Zoo on account of an animal act they used to have but don't anymore because the humane society said it was wrong to use snakes out of their "natural element" although Muriel, who danced with a seven-foot boa named Steve, swore that the snake slept through the whole dance except I know Steve who lives in the dressing room in a glass case and I can't tell if he's sleeping or not because he never closes his eyes." THE GLASS CAFÉ (or THE STRIPPER AND THE STATE; How My Mother Started a War With The System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous), is such a captivating read aloud--truly a performance piece--that I have half a mind to return this morning for my third day of the IRA (International Reading Association) Convention and take a group of teachers (preferably middle school teachers) hostage so that I can have another audience with whom to share it. Fortunately, we have free nighttime minutes on our cellphone--Shari woke me up a little past midnight my/Orlando time (9:00 PM her/California time), which is when the free minutes begin, and like a jack-in-the box I bounced up out of bed, switched on the light, scooped up the book, and read twenty pages with nary a breath. This review will end shortly since, if I hurry, I can reach the Convention Center as they begin queuing up for the 9:00 opening time of the Exhibition Hall and corner a small crowd. "I like school where I get pretty good grades in everything except gym and sometimes math when it doesn't make any sense to me like when we have to figure out two trains traveling at different speeds and which one will get to a place called Parkerville first. There is never a place called Parkerville in real life and hardly any trains go anywhere anymore and why would two trains be trying to get to a place called Parkerville in the first place? It's just silly." Tony, the twelve-year-old narrator of THE GLASS CAFÉ (or THE STRIPPER AND THE STATE; How My Mother Started a War With The System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous), lives in Los Angeles, has a friend named Waylon, a girl he likes named Melissa, a penchant for dogs (which aren't allowed in their apartment building), and is an aspiring artist who "draws every chance I get." As he tells us the tale of what happened to him and Al, he includes a number of asides, explaining to us what he is doing in regard to his English teacher's instructions about writing a story: "I'll talk more about that later after I do what Ms. Providge the English teacher calls 'developing the structure and character of the story.' And I expect that adults who grab this book for a look, suspicious of having their middle school offspring read something with "STRIPPER" in the