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Location: Learning Resource Center
215 [map]
Phone: (949) 582-4539

Reading dept. newsletters:

Spring 2013

Fall 2012 

Denise Green
Lab Technician

Ruby Trott
Lab Technician

Spring 2013
January 22 - May 16

Office Hours:

Summer 2013
June 17 - August 8

Office Hours:

Welcome to the Reading Program

The Saddleback College Reading Department is dedicated to facilitating student achievement and academic success with emphasis placed on serving the needs of the expanding, diverse populations of the South Orange County Community College District.

In addition, the Department serves as a resource for college faculty and members of the community.

The multilevel reading program includes both a range of developmental and college level classes and independent labs designed to improve vocabulary, reading comprehension, study skills, reading rates, spelling, and critical thinking. State-of-the-art technology and software programs form the core of the independent reading labs.

Spring 2013 Reading Tutoring by Professor Teri FitzMaurice

This feature is for students who are interested in what their instructors recommend for great reading. For previously featured books. For previously featured books, click here.

The Glass Castle

By Jeanette Walls

            In The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls delivers an incredible true story of her childhood in the care of her nomadic, non-conforming parents.  Rex and Rose Mary Walls are brilliant individuals and their four children inherit many of their good virtues.  But her father is the victim of an abusive childhood and finds solace in alcohol.  The mother has an artistic gift, but admits to being an “excitement addict”.  She suffers from bouts of depression and shuns the responsibility of providing for her family.  The author’s earliest memory is cooking hot dogs on the stove at the age of three.

              The family bounces around the Southwest in the 1960’s.  At one point Rex makes a sharp turn in their dilapidated car, the back door swings open, and Jeanette finds herself accidentally thrown from the back seat of the car.  With dust and pebbles stuck on her face she waits for her parents to realize they have lost a passenger.  The twenty minute wait is interminable for a toddler.

              At the age of 10 the author’s family has settled in Rex’s West Virginia hometown.  The uncouth hillbilly relatives make Rex look like the success story of the clan.  Eventually while still in their teens with the support from siblings, the three oldest children move to New York City to escape their parents’ insanity and to start their own successful lives.

              This book is touching for many reasons.  Jeanette Walls overcame extreme odds to achieve her present day status as a contributor to MSNBC.  But she always tries to present her parents with affection and generosity.  She survives poverty, fires and near starvation to find her place in the world.  Her parents instill in her an amazing ability to overcome adversity.

              Additionally, the story is thought provoking about the plight of the “homeless”.  Because of their mental state the parents frequently find themselves on the street or living out of their car.  Even with their children established with successful careers, the parents still elect to live on the streets rather than accept assistance from their children.

              The Glass Castle is a fast paced book that offers a new perspective on a rarely explored fringe of society.