Young Adult (Gr. 7 and up)

09-4-0461

Belton, Sandra. McKendree. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. 262 pp. ISBN 0-688-15950-8, $15.95.

It’s 1948, and Tilara Haynes is a young, chocolate-colored, African-American girl living in a society that cherishes light skin. While visiting her aunt in West Virginia, she learns important life lessons about judging by appearances and self-esteem, the folly of one and the need for the other. While working with her aunt in a nursing home called McKendree, Tilara meets a group of others her own age. Unbeknownst to her, one of the group, March, a light-skinned and honey-eyed boy, develops a crush on her. She shies away from him in general, thinking someone like him could never be interested in someone like her. Instead, she fixes her eyes on Braxton, a dark-skinned "African Prince." Unfortunately, he has his eye on the cream-colored Georgia, a fact that breaks Tilara’s heart.

Tilara’s angst and insecurity come to a head at an end-of-summer party when March finally shows his affection for her. She is shocked and not interested, having dismissed any possibilities between them. At the same party, Braxton makes his intentions known to Georgia. Unfortunately, Georgia’s hooked on March.

McKendree is a well-written book exploring a subject about which African Americans are all too familiar. It points out the folly of prejudice and the need for self-esteem. The way the story unfolds against the backdrop of the nursing home is especially delightful. While the young people are working things out within themselves, they are adding life and love to the aged folks at McKendree. This is a story of redemption that is well worth reading.

—Jyna Scheeren
Schgaticoke (N.Y.) Public Library

09-4-0462

Bruchac, Joseph. Sacagawea: The Story of Bird Woman and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. San Diego: Harcourt, 2000. 200 pp. ISBN 0-15-202234-1, $17.00.

"But you see, boy, York is a slave. Fine a man as he is, he will never have the same chance as a white man. It is not that he is any less strong or brave or even smart. When we had to decide our course of action that hard winter on the Pacific coast, and we called for a vote amongst all present on our journey, York’s vote counted as much as that of any man—or woman, for your mother’s vote was tallied right along with that of everyone else in our company."

This passage espouses much of the strength and spirit of Bruchac’s chronicle of the Lewis and Clark expedition, told alternately by Sacagawea and William Clark to Sacagawea’s son, Pomp. History is woven into the narrative through the telling of the tale itself, excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark, and Native American legends. Men and women of different ages and races stand side by side in this adventure, a starkly different perspective from the accounts delivered by many texts that yield prominence to the two famous explorers and to Thomas Jefferson.

The drawback to this approach is that distinct voices are not established for Sacagawea and Clark; in fact, a great deal of the book reads more as exposition than narrative. Breathing life into people and circumstances past, considering their universality as well as their unique cultural position, is a continual challenge for readers of history. This book’s excellence as carefully researched historical text is somewhat diminished by its burial of story and character under the weight of the facts it presents. It is still extremely worthwhile for use in educational settings, however, as a model of viewing history from the vantage point of the present and of merging historic fact with authorial imagination.

—Kimberly G. Cetron
Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools

09-4-0463

Caseley, Judith. Praying to A.L. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. 180 pp. ISBN 0-688-15934-6, $15.95.

Sierra Goodman, of Jewish and Cuban heritage, has just experienced the death of her father after a long battle with heart failure. In the days and weeks after his death, she finds comfort in the story of Abraham Lincoln, who lost his mother at a young age. Sierra and her father shared an interest in Lincoln, his ideas, and his heroic life.

Sierra feels anything but heroic. Her mother and her best friend, Eli Dash, seem to be pulling away, and her five-year-old brother, Cooper, has yet to realize his father will not be coming back. When Sierra discovers a story Eli has written about her father, she comes to believe her father was the only thing holding everyone and her world together.

Caseley offers a sensitive portrayal of a bicultural family coming to terms with grief. Her father’s Jewish relatives and her mother’s Cuban-American siblings (one of whom describes how their father died while waiting to emigrate and rejoin the family after the revolution) react differently to the death and relate differently to Sierra afterward. While the myriad characters (including schoolmates and friends as well as the large family) lack fullness and some of the dialogue seems wooden, designed to convey a message, the vignettes of Sierra’s life with her father successfully recapture the joy and sweetness that memories provide. Despite its flaws, this poignant novel for middle school readers will appeal to youngsters coping with loss in their own lives.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

09-4-0464

Demers, Barbara. Willa’s New World. Toronto, Ont.: Coteau Books, 2000. 192 pp. ISBN 1-55050-150-X, $6.95 (pb).

Demers describes the settling of North America from the point of view of a young English girl, Willa, sent to Canada by an uncle unwilling to care for his orphaned niece. It is 1795 and British and French traders maintain an uneasy peace with each other and with the Native people of the area. Willa is first taken by Digger and Dyer, "white slavers" who prey on newcomers, but is soon liberated by Master George, the Commander of York Factory, a Hudson’s Bay Company. Master George recognizes Willa’s ability to read and write and employs her as a clerk, eventually offering to marry her. She refuses his offer, preferring to keep her limited freedom.

Willa is befriended by Amelia, a Native woman who works as a cook for the Company. Willa soon becomes close to Amelia and her family, and when she is given the opportunity to travel to another fort to train an apprentice clerk, she agrees, traveling with her Native friends through a variety of landscapes, learning about the natural world and about Native cultures. She also must learn to deal with death when her friend Amelia is mortally wounded while trying to save a younger sister from Dyer. The story ends with Willa, now a seasoned survivor, confidently facing an uncertain future.

Willa’s New World is an excellent book for young readers, particularly girls, who will enjoy reading about the brave and resourceful heroine. The book is notable for its realistic portrayal of life in eighteenth-century Canada and for the author’s strong characterization and attention to detail.

—Andy J. Deering
Central Wyoming College

09-4-0465

Fradin, Dennis Brindell and Fradin, Judith Bloom. Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Clarion, 2000. 178 pp. ISBN 0-395-89898-6, $18.00.

Dennis and Judith Fradin have written a book chronicling the life and achievements of Ida B. Wells, lifelong activist against lynching and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This biography focuses on Wells’s rise from slavery to a life of outspoken campaigning for the basic human rights of post–Civil War African Americans. In the same vein as Harriet Tubman and other celebrated activist women, Wells was very instrumental in reducing lynching in the United States to virtual nonexistence by the time of her death.

Although this book is well researched and presented, there are some problems regarding the placement of this title in an elementary or middle school library or giving it to better readers in this age group who read young adult books. The nature of what Wells railed against was part of arguably the ugliest chapter in our country’s history, but the authors often make the ugliness itself the core of the book. This biography contains racially charged, inflammatory language, including a chapter entitled, "I Saw Them Burn the N——, Didn’t I, Mama?" Also included are pictures of actual lynching victims, still hanging or burned beyond recognition.

To their credit, the Fradins have written for young readers a comprehensive biography of a vitally important African-American woman. The intensity of the content, however, necessary though it may be, may hinder chances for the book’s circulation among its intended audience. I would recommend this book only for the high school level and up.

—Donald E. Landrum
Pitt Community College, Greenville, N.C.

09-4-0466

Hiçyilmaz, Gaye. Smiling for Strangers. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000. 152 pp. ISBN 0-374-37081-8, $16.00.

Hiçyilmaz tells the story of a 14-year-old Yugoslav girl named Nina Topic, who is forced to flee Sarajevo during the recent brutal war. Cut off from her family and betrayed by people she turns to, the feisty young girl, driven to survive, decides to make her way to England, relying on some discovered letters from an old friend of her mother. She is a stowaway, experiencing fear, betrayal, and confusion, traveling in the company of people she cannot fully trust. But she makes it to England. Once there, she locates the old friend, only to discover a painful secret of her mother’s illicit past. The long, arduous journey seems to have a bitter ending.

The novel, intended for young adult readers, tells a compelling story, although the movement is slow, methodical, and a little tedious. What is most lacking from the narration—and this is a serious omission—is the sense of authentic local color. Nina could be any lost and wandering child, a refugee from any war. This may be the intended symbolic purpose, but the reader longs for the verisimilitude of a Sarajevo landscape, a Slavic kitchen, a feeling of custom and heritage. They are there, in meager amount, but never sufficient to suggest a real flesh-and-blood tale of authentic origins. There is also little sense of her Slavic ethnicity—how does she fit into the ethnic madness of the region? Essentially she is Everygirl looking for a home, but the reader does not believe it. We are left with an incomplete tale, a bittersweet story of survival, but one that could be so much more.

—Ed Ifkovic
Tunxis Community-Technical College

09-4-0467

Johnson, Dave, ed. Movin’: Teen Poets Take Voice. New York: Orchard Books, 2000. 64 pp. ISBN 0-531-30258-X, $14.95 (cl); 0-531-07171-5, $6.95 (pb).

That this slender volume, containing 36 poems by 35 young poets, exists at all is a major tribute to the New York Public Library and to Poets House. These two organizations, along with young adult librarians and established poets, make the Poetry-in-the-Branches project work. The project, begun in 1994, is "designed to help community libraries become centers for the discovery of poetry" and "combines readings, writing workshops and discussions for adults and young adults."

The poets included in the collection are as diverse ethnically, racially, and linguistically as New Yorkers in general. Their subject matter includes issues of concern to today’s teens—family relationships, school, friendship, romance, sexuality, cultural difference, turbulent emotions, nostalgia for childhood—issues that are remarkably similar to the concerns of previous generations.

As these students explore language and the power of words, they expand their worlds and create new universes. In "Shoes," Ben Zeitlin writes, "the tales of the world,/in elegant calligraphy,/are written on their soles." John Taglialatela ponders existence in his Yeatsian "Are We": "Are we the dreams of the dreamer/or are we the dreamer that dreams?" In "Leaving," Anny Vanegas contemplates the past: "I had to leave everything—/the empty swing set of childhood,/swaying in the breeze." Toni Ann Fischetti, Eva Lou, Seung-Min Lee, and Kellyn Bardeen are among other strong voices in this collection. I suspect that we will be hearing lots more from these poets as they continue movin’ and take not only voice but also flight.

—Elaine Dunphy Foster
Hudson County (N.J.) Community College

09-4-0468

Lester, Julius. Pharaoh’s Daughter: A Novel of Ancient Egypt. San Diego: Harcourt, 2000. 192 pp. ISBN 0-15-201826-3, $17.00.

The Bible tells us little, while contemporary Egyptian records and modern archaeology reveal nothing, of the Hebrews’ sojourn in Egypt, supposedly during the thirteenth-century-B.C. reign of Ramses II. Nonetheless, the author has imaginatively reconstructed a long-forgotten city, which must have been the most splendid of its day, as the setting for his imaginative retelling of the youth of Moses. The novel follows the familiar story of how Moses was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter—although a different sister, Almah, accompanies the child to the palace, rather than Miriam of the Biblical account.

The inversions of tradition are what give this novel particular interest. A simplistic dichotomy between downtrodden Hebrews and wicked Egyptians is avoided. Ramses II is, in fact, a sympathetic character. Almah becomes a high priestess in the Egyptian religion; the princess is drawn to the Hebrews’ monotheism; and young Moses is torn in his loyalties, religious beliefs, and sense of identity. Different religions meet different individuals’ spiritual and emotional needs, the author—himself a convert to Judaism—appears to be saying.

One might question a few points of accuracy. Did priestesses really dance naked in public ceremonies, and did ancient Egyptians talk about "keeping a low profile"? On the whole, however, this novel provides an unusual and well-balanced view of an episode central to Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as a worthy addition to the ever-popular literature about ancient Egypt.

—Elsa Marston
Bloomington, Ind.

09-4-0469

Platt, Randall Beth. The Likes of Me. New York: Delacorte, 2000. 245 pp. ISBN 0-385-32692-0, $15.95.

A collection of odd characters converges in a remote logging community in the Pacific Northwest to form the intriguing story of young Cordelia Lu Hankins. From her own physical appearance as a half-Caucasian, half-Chinese albino to her relationship with a stepmother whose nickname is Babe for her hugeness, Cordelia’s life is anything but conventional.

Cordelia’s life begins at a time of rapid Asian immigration to the United States, in the early years of the twentieth century. Her mother’s family came from China, and her mother was eventually sold as an indentured laundry girl. Cordelia’s father "bought" her in order to marry her, and Cordelia was born in 1903. Unfortunately, her mother dies and Cordelia is flabbergasted to find herself with an oversized stepmother who everyone fears.

The summer Babe joins the family brings Cordelia together with another character, Squirl. She falls madly in love with him and begins to learn about the seedy side of life, complete with secrets about Babe.

Platt’s coming-of-age novel immediately grabs the reader’s attention because of the unique setting and cast of oddballs. Her ability to communicate Cordelia’s innermost thoughts and reconstruct the whims of a young teen give this book wide appeal. Anyone who has felt like an outcast can identify with young Cordelia, and those simply looking for a good book to read will not be disappointed.

—Sharon Chur Lapensky
Minneapolis, Minn.

09-4-0470

Yang, Dori Jones. The Secret Voice of Gina Zhang. Middleton, Wis.: Pleasant Company, 2000. 218 pp. ISBN 1-58485-199-6, $5.95 (pb).

What would you do if you were a stranger in a strange land and didn’t know the language, and everyone expected you to be eager, outgoing, and enthusiastic, but you only felt shy and awkward? Jinna (later known as Gina) has just come from China. She has never learned another language, and it seems impossible to learn English. Meeting new people has always been difficult for her. Going to a new school by herself is terrifying. No matter how hard she tries to raise her voice and speak, nothing comes out. She thinks of the cormorants, the fishing birds, with the metal band around their throats to prevent their swallowing the fish. She has a metal band around her throat that prevents the words from coming out.

However, the austere and silent presentation to the outside world is no indication at all of the flourishing and abundant world of imagination within. We see Jinna’s indignant response to the patronizing and frustrated voices of her teachers and parents. We can see her own imaginative inner world telling the story of the princess who was captured by a crow and taken against her will to a land far away. Only one person, fat Priscilla, whom nobody likes because she talks too much, is willing to befriend Jinna, unconditionally accepting her silent outward demeanor. Priscilla talks, and Jinna listens, and after a while Jinna begins to know more English than she knew before. But when Priscilla comees in on Jinna while she is telling a story to herself, Jinna is at first angry that her secret world has been discovered. But patient and understanding Priscilla enters that world on Jinna’s own terms, with tender and finally successful results. How many shy children, strangers in a strange land or not, are living in an elaborate world of their own and long for a way to enter the "normal" world around them? This is a profound and moving novel that will be enjoyed by readers from the upper elementary level to high school.

—Ginny Lee
Fairfield, Calif.