Week 4: Ninth Ward

• Week: 4
• Book Title: Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• Book Cover Image:

Copyright (2010) Hatchette Book Group

• Book Summary: A young girl who has been orphaned, is living with her mother's midwife in the 9th Ward of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina.  Lanesha and Mama Ya-Ya both see ghosts and have intuitive feelings.  When the hurricane hits they plan for the best and Lanesha makes it through using her wits.
• APA Reference:  Rhodes, J. P. (2010).  Ninth Ward.  New York, NY: Hatchette Book Group.
• My Impressions:  Although this is considered realistic fiction, I felt a lot of fantasy elements in it.  Lanesha sees and talks to ghosts.  Mama Ya-Ya "sees" the future.  The whole book has a kind-of mystical feel to it.  It is an excellent book, however.  Lanesha's voice is strong even when she is afraid.  She is the kind of character people want to know and be like.  The hurricane is truly frightening and to think of the families and children that went through that horrific event brings chills.  These 10 days that the book covers are filled with nightmarish details that the author covers in a matter-of-fact way.  Her writing lets the reader know that these things were "real" and happened, but extreme graphic details are left out so the reader uses their imagination.  I laughed. I cried. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 
• Professional Review:

Publishers Weekly ( August 02, 2010; 9780316043076 )

With a mix of magical and gritty realism, Rhodes's (Voodoo Dreams) first novel for young readers imagines Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding through the eyes of resourceful 12-year-old Lanesha. Lanesha lives with Mama Ya-Ya, an 82-year-old seer and midwife who delivered Lanesha and has cared for her since her teenage mother died in childbirth. Living in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Lanesha is viewed as an unusual child (she was born with a caul and is able to see ghosts) and is ostracized at school. Lanesha finds strength in Mama Ya-Ya's constant love and axioms of affection and reassurance ("When the time's right... the universe shines down love"). The story becomes gripping as the waters rise and Lanesha, with help from a young neighbor and her mother's ghostly presence, finds a way to keep body and soul together. The spare but vivid prose, lilting dialogue, and skilled storytelling brings this tragedy to life; the powerful sense of community Rhodes evokes in the Ninth Ward prior to the storm makes the devastation and the hardships Lanesha endures all the more powerful. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Review.  (2010, August 2).  [Review of the book Ninth Ward, by J.P. Rhodes]  Publishers Weekly, LLC.  Retrieved from Bowkers booksinprint.com.

• Library Uses:  This could be used as a support for a classroom unit on natural disasters.  Reading the novel, using Google Earth to show the area of distruction, conducting a fund raiser to support ongoing reconstruction, showing Youtube videos of kids helping in the area, there are so many places to take this book!