Week 12 Prompt

Reader's Advisory Matrix:


Author: Frank McCourt

Title: Angela's Ashes

Publication Date: 1996

Number of Pages: 368

Geographic Setting: Ireland; U.S.A.

Time Period: Depression-era

Subject Headings: Irish Americans Biography, Irish Americans Ireland Limerick Biography, McCourt Family, Limerick (Limerick, Ireland) Biography

Type: Non-Fiction, Biography, Autobiography-Memoir

Series Notes: First of three memoirs

Book Summary: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir is a 1996 memoir by the Irish-American author Grank McCourt, with various anecdotes and stories of his childhood in Brooklyn, New York, but focuses mostly on his life in Limerick, Ireland. It also includes his struggles with poverty and his father's alcoholism.

Reading Elements:

• Narrative Context: The work is shaped into a compelling page-turning read that can read much like fiction.
• Subject: The subject of this memoir is Irish-American Frank McCourt and his life growing up.
• Type: A memoir is a type of non-fiction that relies more on the narrative that other types, say an essay.
• Pacing: The pacing of Angela's Ashes is fairly linear, going from young childhood to early adulthood.

1-3 Annotation: In Angela's Ashes, author Frank McCourt details his life as an Irish-American, which begins and ends in New York but primarily takes place in Limerick, Ireland. This book explores McCourt's childhood as he's born in Brooklyn New York, returns to Ireland and poverty as a young child, and struggles to finally return to New York as a young man of nineteen. McCourt deals with poverty and the alcoholism of his father.

Similar Works:

• The Liar's Club by Mary Karr
• The Road from Coorain: A Woman's Exquisitely Clear-Sighted Memoir of Growing up Australian by Jill Ker Conway
•  Growing Up by Russell Baker, Gilbert Riswold
• Memoirs, 1925-1950 by George F. Kennan

Name of Annotator: Brittany Vanzo