The many lessons of Jeanette Walls' “The Glass Castle” become evident while reading the winning entries in the 2008 Cayuga Reads competition. Writers in the student and adult categories focused their essays on the nature vs. nurture debate, the divide between the poor and the privileged and the notion of growing through pain. These and other themes could be found in Walls' memoir, which recounts her upbringing in a willfully poor household. Her father, an alcoholic who showed brilliance when he was sober, would neglect working for his struggling family. Walls' mother didn't believe in cleaning or cooking. Walls laid her feelings about this childhood bare in “The Glass Castle,” and the Cayuga Reads participants who read the book reacted to its myriad lessons in just as many ways.

Winning entries are reprinted here. A video of contestants reading their entries is found at auburnpub.com

Diana Jacob

First place

Once again the outer cold of that harsh central New York winter had crept inside our house during the night and filled my waking moment with dread. I knew I was eventually going to have to slither out from under the covers of my bed, but after a long night of shifting and tucking the blankets under my chin and around my feet, the last thing I wanted to do was thrust my shivering body into the even colder air of my bedroom. This had been a pretty routine scene on these winter mornings so, even at 6 years old, I knew there was no avoiding the blast. But I waited.

The sound of my mother's voice enticing me from the kitchen was just the reassurance I needed to finally take the plunge. I jumped out of bed; pulled severely at one of my blankets until it came loose from the mangled mess I had made during the night and wrapped it around my body. I rushed out of my room, down the long hallway and around the sharp corner into the kitchen where I joined my mother and my 2-year-old brother already warming themselves in front of the open oven door. We held each other and bathed ourselves in the radiant heat. A shivering giggle exploded from my body and my brother began to wriggle next to me. Mom wrapped her arms around both of us, each in our own blankets, and began to move her arms rapidly up and down our bodies. I don't know if it was the friction, or the loving touch of my mother that melted away the last bit of chill. All I know is that I was warm. Really warm.

This is one of the fondest memories of my childhood. I don't know why it was so cold that winter. My guess is that the heat bill was difficult for a single mom to pay and we had to keep it very low, or risk going without any heat at all. In my memory, though, the conditions are insignificant. I have other memories of Christmas mornings, birthday parties and Girl Scout camping trips# - events that I know caused my mother to labor over every detail in order to insure that I would grow up experiencing memorable moments# - but this memory, the one of us huddled around the oven on an unbearably cold winter morning#( this memory is one of intense happiness and love. The conditions may not have been perfect, but the memory is.

Jeanette Walls remembers looking up at the stars with her father and receiving a gift like no other, absolutely unique and given with love. She remembers sharing the vision of a glass castle and embracing the hope that it represented. She remembers her brother's courage to stand up for her despite the odds against him. She remembers leaving home knowing she was fully prepared to take on whatever obstacle she would encounter. She knew she would be triumphant, and so did her parents# - they had raised her to be.

Of course, there are limits to how close we allow our children to come to drowning in a “sink or swim” approach to parenting.

But the way Walls tells it#( I'd be sadder for her if she missed out on the love, the commitment to family, the unyielding desire to learn and create than I am for her now. Heat in the winter is nice, but some things are essential.

Aliza Franceschelli

First place

Senior, Auburn High School

How much of whom we are and will become is determined by what we were and where we came from? To what degree does the influence of the environment in which a person is raised, alter their personality? Do our life experiences as children set the course for the path of our lives and the direction of our futures? I believe that all of us are influenced by our upbringing, but it is the characteristics that lie within us that help determine who we will become.

In the memoir, “The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls, Ms. Walls tells the incredible story of her childhood with her grossly dysfunctional family. By most people's standards, Jeannette Walls lived a childhood of severe poverty, neglect, and abuse. She faced countless adverse experiences that were often intensified by her parent's lack of basic parental duty. While I do believe Jeannette's father, in his own way, loved his children and taught them to embrace life and all of its wonders, his efforts were overshadowed by his excessive abuse of alcohol which was brought about by his own childhood upbringing. Jeannette's mother, on the other hand, was selfish, unable to face life's realities, and was void of a true love and attachment to her children, leaving them to fend for themselves.

When Jeannette was a young girl, her father forced her to learn to swim by using what he referred to as the “sink or swim” method. Rex, continually threw his daughter into the water, calling out, “sink or swim” and Jeannette finally swam. Much of Jeannette's life experiences mimic the sink or swim method. She would be thrown into the most difficult situations but because of something within herself, she was able to swim to the surface. I believe that most people would not be able to draw upon the strength that lies within, as did Jeannette.

It would be nearly impossible for me to relate to Jeannette and the way she was raised. I am fortunate enough to have a loving, supportive, caring family that provides for my safety and well-being. However, I believe each of us faces a time in our lives when we encounter a “sink or swim” situation. In Jeannette's case, I believe in an odd way the adversity of her situation provided an avenue for her strength to surface. Would she be the strong, independent, determined self-reliant person she is today without having experienced the life she led? I do not think so. However, in contrast, I believe that being raised in the environment that I experience, with love, support, and encouragement has provided me with the foundation I need to be strong, independent, determined, and self-reliant as well.

Whether or not a person “sinks or swims” is not ultimately decided by their upbringing. While, the influences of childhood leave an indelible mark, the strength of character can erase the scars. How someone is raised plays a significant part of the direction their lives might take; it is what lies within that will determine the destination of their journey.