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Rgz SALON member Lyn Miller-Lachmann has been the Editor-in-Chief of MultiCultural Review; the author of the award-winning multicultural bibliography Our Family, Our Friends, Our World; the editor of Once Upon a Cuento, a collection of short stories by Latino authors; and most recently, the author of Gringolandia, a young adult novel about a refugee family living with the aftermath of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The book has now sold out half of its second print run and is available for order! (Don't forget to read the fascinating Cover Story for Gringolandia.)
We're honored to have Lyn here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Today, she reviews What Momma Left Me by Renée Watson (Bloomsbury, 2010).
"Thirteen-year-old Serenity’s father has just killed her mother after years of physical abuse, and Serenity and her 12-year-old brother, Danny, have gone to live across town with their maternal grandparents. Grandpa is the minister of an African-American Baptist church, and he and Grandma find solace in their faith, but Serenity questions how a benevolent God would have allowed her mother to die, her father to disappear (we later find out he has committed suicide), and her little family to be destroyed. Grandma and Grandpa enroll Serenity and Danny in a strict private school and require their attendance at Sunday school. A new school means a fresh start—Serenity makes friends and Danny becomes the middle school heartthrob. However, Danny starts to make poor choices, and he, Serenity, and Serenity’s new best friend are drawn into a circle of violence that brings her into conflict with her grandparents and challenges her faith even further.
"Read together, the chapter titles Add a Comment