48 Hours Review: Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet

I’ll never know what it is like to be biracial, but in Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, author Sherri L. Smith paints a portrait of a biracial family through the eyes of Ana Shen.  Living in Los Angeles, Ana is the salutatorian of her 8th grade class.  Graduation day is hectic enough when a water main breaks right as Ana begins her speech, but now that the graduation dance is cancelled, Ana will have to spend more time than expected with her African American and Chinese grandparents.

Previous events where both sides of the family gathered together were disastrous.  Ana is determined to make today perfect and have her grandparents, especially the grandmothers, make peace.

Primarily set in the Shen’s kitchen, Ana is in charge of making pot stickers, Grandma White will make gumbo, and Grandma Shen will make lion’s head.  Plus there’s a boy involved — Japanese student Jamie Tabata who is the class valedictorian.

The day is filled with tension and at the meal with Ana’s family, Jamie’s family, and two other families, things come to an explosive head.

The story is a winner because it offers an honest look at a family that combines two cultures who try to get along for the sake of the children.  The title describes the meal that the family is preparing to celebrate Ana’s graduation, but I think it describes her family as well.  No family is all good or all bad.  It takes a bit of the hot, the sour, the salty, and the sweet to really make a family.  Ana learns that lesson on graduation day.

 

48 Hours Review: Spellbound

In 2003, I was in Karibu books in Maryland happily having a book shopping spree.  One of the books I picked up was Chill Wind by Janet McDonald.  It took me a couple of years before I actually read it, but I loved it when I did.

Today I picked up her novel Spellbound which is the story of Raven, a young girl in the projects who has accidentally become a teen mother after an unintentional one night stand.  Joined by her friend Aisha, the protagonist in Chill Wind, who is also a teen mother, McDonald paints a story of startling contrasts between Raven and Aisha.

Aisha is content to be a teen mother on welfare living in the projects, but Raven’s dreams are bigger than that.  Aisha’s daughter’s father is not an active part of their life, and initially neither is Jesse, the father of Raven’s son, but that’s because he never called her back after that one night stand.

Author Janet McDonald passed away in 2007 of cancer while living in Paris, France.  At the close of Spellbound, she wrote, “Spellbound is a pun, a conundrum, and a cautionary tale.  Raven, held by the magic of words — their spelling, their meaning, and their power to liberate — confronts and resolves the most intimidating predicament a teenage girl can face: sudden motherhood.  The teenaged single mother is so familiar a phenomenon that to many she might appear ordinary.  But when a baby bursts forth in the midst of a young life, for that girl, that mother, her very singular, unique, and promising journey is altered, and in many ways truncated, forever.  Her choice is existential — strive or glide.  Raven strives.  Aisha glides.  And that is where their friendship diverges.”

Spellbound is the story of more than just another teenage girl who becomes pregnant.  Spellbound is the story of determination, perseverance, and taking the road less traveled. 

48 Hours Review: Sallie Gal & The Wall-a-kee Man

I first learned of Sheila P. Moses through my involvement with The Brown Bookshelf.  The author of The Legend of Buddy Bush, Moses was raised in Rich Square, North Carolina as the ninth of tenth children.

Set on Cumbo Road in rural North Carolina, Sheila P. Moses uses her own childhood as the inspiration of the story of Sallie Gal, her cousin Wild Cat, and their adventures as a sharecropping family.  While Papa’s off fighting in the Vietnam War, Sallie Gal and Momma pick cotton.  Sallie Gal yearns for pretty hair ribbons like her cousin Wild Cat with the pretty green eyes wears.

Momma instills in Sallie Gal a strong work ethic and sense of pride.  Refusing to accept charity from anyone including family, Sallie Gal and Wild Cat come up with ways to earn money to buy hair ribbons from the Wall-a-kee Man like selling lemonade on Cumbo Road and doing chores for Miss Dottie.

The story is an easy read, filled with wonderful illustrations from Niki Daly, and told in a way that teaches about life in the rural south where families have to work hard for the things they need all while maintaining a sense of pride and passing it on to their children.

48 Hours Review: Side Effects

I grew up reading Lurlene McDaniel books and I remember crying hard as the protagonists battled cancer, mainly leukemia if my memory serves correctly.

I recently read My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult.  An amazing book by the way and it will be a movie in 2009 with Abigail Breslin.

I saw the movie Stepmom and several Lifetime movies that deal with cancer.

Last year, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Daily I work with breast cancer patients.

So it is safe to say that I am familiar with cancer.

I discovered Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss this morning at the library by happenstance.  I wanted some thinner books to read to balance out the 200 and 300 plus page books that I am reading this weekend for the readers challenge.

This is a great book.  Izzy is diagnosed with lymphoma in the opening chapter, but if you expect her to be weepy and philosophical and brave in the face of this disaster, forget about it.

Her form of therapy to stay sane in the face of nine rounds of chemo, her mother’s tears, her best friend’s mood swings, and people in general being sympathetic to her illness is to draw her way through it.

If you’ve seen the movie Juno, I can totally see Ellen Page being Izzy.  She’s snarky, honest, and outspoken, but at times she keeps those thoughts from her weepy mother and just shares them with us  the reader.

I won’t tell you the final outcome, but I will say that I didn’t cry.

48 Hour Review: How to Steal a Dog

It’s not easy being poor.  And it’s even harder when you’re a kid who has been evicted from her home and has to live in her car with her mother and brother.  Georgina Hayes washes up for school in the gas station bathrooms in the mornings before school as her mother works two jobs.  It’s hard to keep this all a secret in a small town in North Carolina especially from her best friend. 

Until one day Georgina comes up with a plan — steal a dog, get the reward for the missing dog, and move into a house.  She scouts around for the perfect dog to steal and finally founds lovable and smart Willy.

Stealing a dog is a bit more complicated than Georgina counts on even if she did create a step by step guide.  Author Barbara O’Connor tells a poignant story that has you rooting for Georgina even if she does something wrong to make things in her life right.   She doesn’t wrap up the story by making the family financial problems magically go away either.  Georgina grows up in the course of  this story and learns a good rule from an unexpected teacher:  Sometimes, the more you stir it, the worse it stinks.