Showing posts with label coming of age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coming of age. Show all posts

Ninth Ward Review

Ninth Ward
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Ninth Ward ReviewIn a novel for younger readers, Jewel Parker Rhodes tells the story of thirteen-year-old Lanesha, a girl who lives in New Orleans' Ninth Ward pre-Katrina with a grandmotherly lady she calls Mama Ya-Ya. The relationship between elderly woman and child, while not of blood, is one bound in spirit and love. With her roots in the old voodoo ways, Mama Ya-Ya combines a nurturing presence with the wisdom of her years; in fact, it was Mama Ya-Ya who delivered Lanesha when the girl's mother died in childbirth. As well as Mama Ya-Ya, it isn't uncommon for Lanesha to see ghosts, among them her mother, and others who wander the streets of New Orleans, a city with a particularly rich cultural history. As Katrina approaches, Mama Ya-Ya senses something more than a storm, though her weary soul cannot see clearly what is ahead. As the old lady dreams, Lanesha takes over, preparing for the hurricane, boarding windows, preparing food.
There is an almost allegorical sense of the old giving way to the new in this poignant tale, albeit with an uncertain future. An avid student who dreams of building bridges, Lanesha's curiosity is insatiable, but it is her compassion and bravery that will inspire young readers, the spiritual ties between generations and the capacity to entertain the extraordinary. The author clearly loves this city and its wealth of history and stories, however it may have been damaged by Katrina and its shameful aftermath. And she writes with the same fluid grace and turn of phrase that has distinguished her adult novels. Lanesha's world may have changed with Katrina's devastation, but she is truly a child of Mama Ya-Ya's heart, buoyed by her appetite to taste the world and her appreciation of others, real or imagined. Luan Gaines/2010.
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A Student of Weather Review

A Student of Weather
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A Student of Weather ReviewThis little story was truly a wonderful surprise. I expected a cozy little family saga, but got much more. This quiet unassuming novel about ordinary people builds slowly into a gripping tale that once it gets going is impossible to put down.
It begins in 1938 on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada with two lonely motherless sisters, nine years apart in age and worlds apart in looks and personality. Norma Joyce is small, dark, wiry, homely, inquisitive, provocative, and restless, while older sister Lucinda is a ravishing redhead, quiet, serene, the hard working homemaker for father and younger sister. Although Norma is just a kid, when Maurice Dove, a 'student of weather' visits the farm, both sisters, each in their own way, fall desperately in love with him, a love to last a lifetime, but with tragic consequences. The presence of Maurice will be the wedge that drives the sisters apart and alters the family fate, although the personality of each character will also determine the outcome of the story, which later shifts to Ottawa and then alternates between Ottawa and New York City.
What makes this novel stand out from the crowd aside from its careful plotting and lovely descriptive passages about foliage, flora, and of course weather, are the ways in which the author makes brilliant use of small details of personality and psychology to drive what would otherwise be an ordinary story into high gear and to create unforgettable complex characters. She gets it right on target, too, so much so, that the reader feels that he/she is a witness to real peoples' lives. This book is one of my top picks of the year!A Student of Weather Overview

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