Mary M. Burns
Last Updated on June 7, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 115
Skillfully constructed, [Them That Glitter and Them That Don't] is persuasively real. And while Carol Ann as narrator is undoubtedly the central character, the personality of her mother—half child, half con artist—is a brilliant creation, demonstrating that the parents' uncaring attitude toward their daughter should be understood as dependence rather than malice. Humor rising naturally from the circumstances transforms the grim details of Carol Ann's life into an optimistic chronicle. As she proudly tells her music teacher, she is, like most Gypsies, a survivor—and her argument is convincing.
Mary M. Burns, in a review of "Them That Glitter and Them That Don't," in The Horn Book Magazine, Vol. LIX, No. 4, August, 1983, p. 453.
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