Lynda Hunt's One For The Murphys

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“I stare at my name. Carley Connors. Thirteen letters. How unlucky can one person be?” (1). Lynda Hunt’s fiction book, One for the Murphys, provides a story of a young girl named Carley Connors. Carley is now a foster child who needs a place to stay until her mother recovers in the hospital. A social worker decides that she has to live with the Murphys. While she is staying with them, she judges the family from the moment she steps into their house. “Mrs. Murphy steps to the side. Behind her stands three boys… I’m probably here to be a live-in babysitter or modern-day Cinderella” (4). This shows how Carley thinks about the Murphys at the start of the book. Although one can learn from the book that, “Family looks out for family” (12), the main …show more content…

“I hardly know Daniel, but I hate him anyway” (16). Due to her judgement, her and Daniel never get along. But how can one come to mends if they don’t even know each other? One day, Carley approaches Daniel. Eventually, toward the end of the book, Carley and Daniel become like notes on a music scale, they blend in perfect harmony. “Daniel is more like me than I would have ever imagined” (206). Truly, this example shows how much one can learn while getting to know each other.
Nevertheless it could be said that the central message in the story is that “Family looks out for family” (12). Throughout the book, One for the Murphys, Carley adapts to the Murphys home and starts to treat everyone as family. “I… am a Murphy” (206). Although, in the beginning, Carley never agrees to being associated to the Murphy family. She only realizes this after getting to know the family, rather than judging them.
With all the judgement in the beginning of the book, which then changes to love in the end. It is finally time for Carley to go, yet she finds herself unable to pull herself away from the Murphys. “Me too… I mean, I’ll miss all of you …” (222). Carley Connors realizes that she was wrong about the Murphys by judging them in the start. Whether it is adapting to a new family or a new friend, it can be seen that all examples relate to the book's theme, some people can turn out differently after getting to know

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