The House Girl by Tara Conklin

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

The House Girl
by Tara Conklin

The House Girl is the tale of two women, one a slave living in Virginia, the other an attorney living in New York City.  The lives of these two women entwine as they both look for their place in the world.

Josephine is the house girl for Mrs. Bell, a once beautiful woman, who was disowned by her family when she ran off to get married.  Mrs. Bell is unable to deliver a healthy child, the evidence of this faces her daily in the graves of her 17 children buried on the property of Bell Creek.

Mrs. Bell sees Josephine, in many ways, as the child that she was never able to have.  She teaches Josephine to read and to write, and also gives her access to artistic supplies.  Josephine becomes an accomplished artist.

Lina (short for Carolina) is a young attorney in a high-powered New York law firm.  She has, so far, put all she is into her work.  She lives with her father, who is an artist.  Lina's mother has been gone since she was four, and Lina thinks of her often.

Lina is asked to work on a ground-breaking slave reparations case for the firm at the same time that her father opens an exhibit of new paintings - all of Lina's mother, Grace. 

Through these women, Conklin explores the themes of freedom, family and self discovery.  Beautifully written in the voices of both women, The House Girl is both an engaging story and food for thought.

Come August, Come Freedom by Gigi Amateau

Image courtesy of gigiamateau.com

Come August, Come Freedom
by Gigi Amateau

I feel like I can't talk about this book without talking about Gigi.  Gigi first learned of Gabriel's Rebellion from a marker on the side of the road.  How many times do we drive by similar markers, never stopping?  As she began to research Gabriel and his life, the story started to unfold.  She wrote Come August, Come Freedom after extensive study of primary documents.  It's these documents that make this novel historical;it's how Gigi fills in the rest of the story that makes this novel stick in your heart.

Gabriel was born enslaved in Henrico County, Virginia.  He became a very talented blacksmith in a time where all that was needed to run a household started in a forge.  He was a striking man, very tall and strong.  He also learned to read and write.  By all measures, he was both respected and well liked.

The first part of this book is about Gabriel's success at organizing thousands of enslaved and/or disenfranchised people to march to Richmond and revolt.  Rallied by the success of Toussaint in Haiti and using the blacksmith shop as a way to both repurpose weapons and deliver messages, Gabriel was able to put together an intricate plan that he hoped would free not just himself, but all black people. 

The second part of this book is a love story.  Much of the impetus of a rebellion was his desire to live a life with his beloved Nan.  Gabriel saw a life where his children were born free, he ran his own blacksmith shop and Nan worked on her sewing.  They were able to be together, as a family - something that did not happen with enslaved families.

As many good love stories so often do, this one ends in tragedy.  This heart-wrenching story is made bearable only by Gigi's rich narrative and strong character development; becoming not a story of a botched rebellion, but one of the power of love.  This is the story of the perseverance of hope in the face of adversity.  This story makes us believe that if we truly want something, we need to work at it.  Don't give up, Gabriel warns us.  And it makes me want to pick up his hand and run with him.

Okay for Now by Gary d. Schmidt

Image courtesy of http://www.hmhbooks.com/schmidt/okay.html

 

 

Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

 

I'm going to start this review by admitting that I had never read anything by Schmidt before.  Another confession, I often write down interesting books that I hear about on the radio - while in the car.  I do, however, try to wait for the red light.  Okay for Now was one of these books (car shorthand: OK 4 now, I got Schmidt wrong).  When the Virginia Reader's Choice list came out for the 2013/2014 school year and Okay for Now was on it, it was the first book I ordered!

 

The story is of a young boy named Doug.  Many of you might have met Doug in The Wednesday Wars, but not having read any Schmidt before, this was our introduction.  Doug's life stinks.  His family has moved, his Dad is a jerk, his Mom is barely coping, his oldest brother returns damaged from Vietnam (and really, who didn't?!) and the middle brother is a delinquent. 

 

Doug's salvation comes in the form of Lil Spicer and John James Audubon.  I can't imagine a more unlikely pair!  This book is clever and charming.  I fell hard for Doug as I was turning the first pages!  He's a great kid, the kind that you'd take under your wing.  I saw much of my students in him, not all of him, but parts; and I feel sure student readers would relate to him as well.

 

The first thing that I wanted to do when I finished Okay for Now was to call Gary D. Schmidt and thank him for bringing Doug into the world.  He's a character that I won't soon forget.  It makes me want to find the time to read The Wednesday Wars, I just can't get enough.  Doug has a long, tough road ahead of him, but Schmidt does a great job of letting the reader know that he will be okay; and isn't that what we all want to know?  It will be okay, for now.

 

Just in case you think I'm a chump, read this:

 

The Yellow Shank wasn't the first thing you saw at all.  You saw his world first.  It was fall, and the grass was getting duller, and the tress were gold and that reddish brown that looks like the color of old bricks.  The Yellow Shank was walking in a sunny spot, looking like he owned the place.  The water in front of him was dark, and the woods beyond were darker still.  Really dark.  But Audubon knew something about composition: he kept the top of the bird's back as straight as the horizon, right smack in the middle of the scene, with a beak held up just as flat and just as straight, and an eye that said I know where I belong.  You couldn't help but be a little jealous of this bird.

Okay for Now is a story about how a boy figures out where he belongs.  And I thoroughly enjoyed his journey.