Sandra Tsai Reviews Here Today

Here Today, by Ann M. Martin, is a story of a young girl named Ellie Dingman who faces big changes and difficulties as she is growing up. Her neighborhood in Spectacle is mysteriously being sabotaged, and this causes instability around her house. Her best friend Holly’s mother is unmarried and having troubles with her boyfriend, who seems to be taking advantage of all the money. Ellie and Holly are outcasts at school, and are shunned and treated horribly by everyone, especially the popular girls, at their school. Only one of the popular girls talks to Ellie sometimes, but only because she is interested in Doris, Ellie’s mother. John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and everyone is in shock. Most importantly, her mother decides to chase after her dreams of becoming a star, which affects the Dingmans drastically. She moves to New York City to pursue her dreams, leaving her whole family behind, Ellie suddenly find herself in charge of her younger siblings and dealing with everything that is changing around her.
Ellie is just an average girl, who tries to cope with her difficult situations, and manages to in quite believable ways. For instance, when her classmates at school abuse her and Holly by slamming into them really hard, she decides to not tell anyone. She says to Holly, “Don’t tell anyone. Not anyone at all” (Martin, 157). She keeps it a secret for two reason: she does not want her classmates to think of them as tattletales, because they would hate them even more; also, she does not want her parents to be worried about her when they have problems and are busy themselves. This shows how she wants to fit in, and in real life, fitting in is what everybody has to struggle with. Also, it brings out the fact that she is considerate about her parents, because she does not want them to be worried. Another example is when Doris, her mother, decides to leave for New York City to try to become an established star. Ellie, not wanting her to leave them, offers to help out more. She tells Doris, “I could help around the house more. I talked to Albert and Marie and decided we could do all the cooking” (Martin, 203). Ellie desperately tries to change her mothers mind, and jumps to the conclusion that it may be her fault that her mother wants to leave. She obviously loves her mom very much, and is willing to do a lot for her mother to decide to stay. Also, another example is when Ellie begs her father to let her ride to New York City to visit her mother by herself, but he refuses to let her go. She then decides to sneak there by herself, and plans everything before hand. She asks Holly, “On Monday, do you think you could take care of Albert and Marie all day? I’ll pay you three dollars” (Martin, 223). She is quite responsible to have remembered about her siblings, and arranged plans so they won’t be unsupervised. She goes against her fathers wishes because she has a stubborn and headstrong mind. All these traits of Ellie make her a really believable and well-developed character.
Overall, this was a really interesting book that includes many small and big conflicts which are all interweaved into an unforgettable novel. The whole story flowed together very well, and it made me feel like I was in the story myself. It was really interesting how the author referred to many things that actually occurred back in the days in which the story take place. I would recommend this book to young readers to like realistic fiction books, especially ones that take place in the past.