Sakura of DOOM

And I continue to read more Angela Johnson! I only wish her books were longer so I went through them less quickly, or that she had a lot more backlist.

Lila has a rare medical condition that makes her allergic to sunlight, and sometimes even strong street lights. Her family has largely accomodated themselves to her schedule, but even so, she and two other girls are conspiring to get her out into the sun on her ninth birthday. The only thing is, her two friends don't always show up.

This is written in first person, and Lila doesn't capitalize. Usually, this would bug me, but somehow Johnson makes it work. And I know I keep saying that, but I just adore Johnson's prose and the little turns of phrase she puts in. I think my favorite part of this book was Lila relating how she and her friend got locked in his garage, and by the time his dad found them, they had eaten 23 popsicles from the freezer. Lila got all the grape ones.

Like the other Johnson books I've read, this is a slim book that's almost over before it begins. I didn't like it quite as much as Bird, but I still like it a lot.

I'm now about a month into my attempt to get more happy YA chick lit by and/or about POC, particularly girls and women of color, and Angela Johnson has been one of my favorite finds so far (the other is Justina Chen Headley). I want to pimp these books because I am sad that people might miss them by dismissing them as Depressing Books About the POC Experience (With Gangs! Bonus questions for schools and book clubs included, along with a special gold star for raising your awareness). Johnson's books aren't really happy, YA, or chick lit -- they're calming and meditative, shelved in the children's section, and don't have the trendy, snappy, fun voices and emphasis on humor to get into my personal definition of chick lit, but they're wonderful little slices of life that always make me feel good about life in general.

At first glance, this is just another book about teen pregnancy, and starring black characters at that. But it's not really; it's more a book about love and grief, particularly Bobby's love for his newborn daughter Feather.

This is a slight book in terms of size, but not in terms of emotion. Johnson presents us with tiny scenes of "then" and "now," "then" being right around when Bobby discovers that his girlfriend Nia is pregnant, and "now" being a few days after Feather's birth. They're really small scenes, very intimate and very delicate, and I still love the end of the first chapter:

But I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They'd be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end.

Then everybody could end their life on their momma or daddy's stomach in a warm room, waiting for the soft morning light.

It didn't hit me as viscerally as some other books have, but I suspect a lot of that was because I read it in one sitting at an ungodly hour of the morning (I need to stop doing that). Also, it's a nice change from the usual Book Warning about Teen Pregnancy (exclamation point!), and while I normally would protest books about pregnancy that are all "Oh woez! My life!" for the guys and books with black kids caught painting graffiti, I very much like Bobby, and though we only get to see a little of Nia's POV, I like that we see her making choices. And, of course, there's the fact that Bobby ends up raising Feather, and while the book goes into how it affects his life, it's really less about that and much, much more on his love for Feather. It reads as very stereotypically maternal, only not, because it's placing those "maternal" instincts with the father.

I also like how Johnson manages to portray just how difficult raising a baby is, but mostly I love the writing, how the fragments of chapters feel dreamlike and peaceful, despite the topic. I went back to the library to pick up several more of her books on the strength of this one.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review