'When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy. I would figure out this or that way and run it down through my head until it got easy.'<br><br>So begins the tale of Ellen Foster the brave and engaging heroine of Kaye Gibbons's first novel which won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Wise funny affectionate and true <I>Ellen Foster</I> is as Walker Percy called it 'The real thing. Which is to say a lovely sometimes heart/wrenching novel...<I>[Ellen Foster]</I> is as much a part of the backwoods South as a Faulkner character and a good deal more endearing.'