The book I Beat The Odds by Micheal Oher with Don Yaegar, is a novel about the struggles of Michael’s youth. With no father in the picture and a drug addict mom, Michael was homeless from a young age. He was often left alone with his siblings with no shelter and no parents around. From a young age Michael had no one to motivate him to do well in school which caused him to have to retake first and second grade. He also bounced around foster care homes and 11 different schools in his early life. Oher, having written this book about himself, revealed many personal truths that most people wouldn’t know from the outside looking in. One of these truths was that he despised the Department of children services office in Memphis. He blamed them for everything that had gone wrong in his childhood. Michael did not like being in foster care homes and often tried to avoid it even when he was homeless. He hated being split apart from his siblings which happened almost everyone time he went to a new foster home. While Michael spent very little time in school as a young kid he used football as an escape from his disappointing reality. As you read through the timeline of his childhood the events in his life only worsened but his turning point came when he was 16. Sean and Leigh Anne Touhy took him in. This was a very pivotal point in Michael’s life and it changed the path he was on forever. The Touhy’s were a wealthy family that gave him a safe place to live. For the first time he was being encouraged to go to school and to excel as much as he could. At first Michael felt impolite and uncomfortable in his new home. He felt undeserving of what he had all the sudden. But as time went on he flourished in his new environment and at the age of 17 he was adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne. In his junior year he showed prominent growth on the football field. Excelling past many players who had been playing football competitively their whole life, an opportunity that Michael never had. Here he shows his grit and determination. This hard work was rewarded because by the beginning of the senior year he was starting on varsity as left tackle. Micheal now doing well in school, and a top prospect in Tennessee on the football field, received many D1 offers his senior year. This inspiring book wraps up with Micheal graduating and going on to play football in college and the NFL. Oher wrote this book as a means to cope with his past. He even contacted his old caseworker, Ms. Bobbie Spivey, to help him put pieces of his childhood back together that trauma forced him to forget. The final important meaning of Oher's book was to inspire children who grew up like him. He wrote it to give them hope for a better future.