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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
My rating system:
5✩ - Well, there went my day. Couldn't put it down. I think it destroyed any hope of reading other books...
4✩ - This book was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. It may be missing something, or there is one major issue in it, but overall I would highly recommend it!
3✩ - This book was average. Neither good nor bad. Certainly not the worst book I've read, but not the best either.
2✩ - This book really just wasn't for me.
1✩ - Well, I finished it. How? I don't know. Definitely do not recommend it.
5✩ - Well, there went my day. Couldn't put it down. I think it destroyed any hope of reading other books...
4✩ - This book was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. It may be missing something, or there is one major issue in it, but overall I would highly recommend it!
3✩ - This book was average. Neither good nor bad. Certainly not the worst book I've read, but not the best either.
2✩ - This book really just wasn't for me.
1✩ - Well, I finished it. How? I don't know. Definitely do not recommend it.
This book gets four stars because it is vivid and the descriptions bring our young readers into the story. CondoB., Jozef Syndicate's 9-year-old reviewer, writes: "10-year-old Sugar is adventurous and brave. In this book, you go through her expeditions and the ups and down. Even having a forbidden friend, Billy (the white plantation owner's son), Sugar is careful about what she does. When Billy tells her about the China men who were coming to River Road Plantation to work with them, she becomes more curious about the world. When they arrive, she goes over to their sacks to greet them and share stories from their country. Having her mother die and her best friend move north Sugar is accepted into the Beals' family. Sugar is friends with the Chinese. When the plantation owner Mr. Wills fired the overseer he got revenge and burned the mill. Mr. Wills had no choice but to sell River Road. The big lessons of Ms. Parker Rhodes' book, Sugar, is to never be afraid to overcome every obstacle and to allow nothing to interfere with your friendship, not even race."
--CondoB, age 9
--CondoB, age 9
I love that the author took the little known history of Chinese immigrants during reconstruction, and the interaction and impact on former slaves, and created an engaging coming of age story. This is a great addition to a historical fiction unit, to a unit exploring the interaction of immigrants and native born Americans and in this case with freed slaves. What causes people to leave their homes and take chances to in a new place? In this story we see freed slaves moving north away from sugar plantations and Chinese men moving toward sugar plantations in search of a better income.
I’m looking forward to introducing my 4th graders to this story.
I’m looking forward to introducing my 4th graders to this story.
This is a book that centers a young woman’s story of agency and self, while emphasizing the role of oppressive systems in setting limits on that sense of self ..... I want my fourth graders to read this, like, yesterday. Also a great story of solidarity against these systems! So so so good. Already imagining the convos this will inspire in my students around race/language/privilege/class/access/enslavement
I actually enjoyed reading this. I'm not usually one for realistic/historical fiction but Sugar is just so spunky. It moves quickly and the characters are all interesting. It touches on deep issues without getting bogged down in them.
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is another from my son's Build Your Library booklist. It's a cute enough book (I was going to say "sweet"), but a little lacking in subtlety. The characters are largely indistinct, and there are at least two historically/factually questionable points I noticed (one relating to the timing of the end of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the other to the sound a bald eagle makes). The age of the main character is a little unclear, as well. Early on, she mentions being alive for 15 years, but later says she's 10, which makes more sense based on how she acts. The author has good points to make, they just aren't made as artfully as they could have been, which is pretty common for middle-grade novels, in my experience.
An interesting and child friendly book about life on a plantation after the civil war is over. This book doesn't shy away from describing the awfulness of daily life on a plantation, nor does it shy way from giving the reader a frank description of the racism that people like the main character, her fellow ex-slaves, and the Chinese workers faced. When I say child friendly, I mean that this book presents those issues from the point of view of a child, and makes them accessible to all ages for discussion and contemplation. This issues are still prevalent today and books like this are good tools for dialogue. Under the right circumstances I would use this book in my classroom.
Ten-year-old Sugar lives on a sugar plantation in Louisiana during the turbulent, difficult years of Reconstruction. Her mother is dead, her father has never returned after being sold during the closing days of slavery, and she has to contend with the grueling challenge of planting and harvesting sugarcane. The community of plantation workers is there to help her, but change is afoot, personified by a group of Chinese workers who are hired to help work the fields. And what will become of Sugar's friendship with Billy, the son of the plantation's owner?
It's not a bad premise, and it has the advantage of covering some events that aren't particularly familiar -- I know I wasn't aware that some plantations in the South hired laborers from China during Reconstruction. Unfortunately, however, the execution doesn't really succeed.
The first thing I noticed when I picked the book up was the strangely-cadenced prose. It's unusually clipped, full of odd sentence fragments and half-sentences. It's a first-person narrative, but there's nothing in Sugar's character that made the idiosyncratic prose feel natural, especially given her devotion to storytelling. Additionally, the story is presented in the present tense. I tend not to like the present tense as a stylistic choice unless there's a very specific reason for it (e.g., the stream-of-consciousness nature of adult novels such as Ulysses or If on a winter's night a traveler), and nothing in the otherwise straightforward narrative of Sugar seemed to demand an unusual presentation. Frankly, I kind of wondered if the book might have been better as a verse novel, a format which doesn't punish those kind of stylistic choices.
Sugar also seemed to me to be heavy-handed in its themes -- characters are constantly discussing what it means to be "free," with the kind of self-consciousness that takes the reader out of the story. The opportunity for meditation on the nature of freedom is already there in the narrative without needing to call so much explicit attention to itself. The same could easily be said about the many conversations about how "the times are changing."
The characters didn't really come alive for me either. Sugar has little to distinguish her from any number of other spunky, ahead-of-their-times protagonists in historical novels, Beau is essentially just Ducks from last year's Tracks, and many of the supporting characters are far too eager to utter tired lines such as Missus Beale's: "Sugar already has too many fancies in her head. It isn't natural."
Jewell Parker Rhodes is a well-respected author whose awards include a 2011 Coretta Scott King Honor for Ninth Ward. I think it's awesome that she's chosen an unusual setting for Sugar; I just wish that the novel as a whole lived up to its promise.
This review also appeared on abouttomock.blogspot.com
It's not a bad premise, and it has the advantage of covering some events that aren't particularly familiar -- I know I wasn't aware that some plantations in the South hired laborers from China during Reconstruction. Unfortunately, however, the execution doesn't really succeed.
The first thing I noticed when I picked the book up was the strangely-cadenced prose. It's unusually clipped, full of odd sentence fragments and half-sentences. It's a first-person narrative, but there's nothing in Sugar's character that made the idiosyncratic prose feel natural, especially given her devotion to storytelling. Additionally, the story is presented in the present tense. I tend not to like the present tense as a stylistic choice unless there's a very specific reason for it (e.g., the stream-of-consciousness nature of adult novels such as Ulysses or If on a winter's night a traveler), and nothing in the otherwise straightforward narrative of Sugar seemed to demand an unusual presentation. Frankly, I kind of wondered if the book might have been better as a verse novel, a format which doesn't punish those kind of stylistic choices.
Sugar also seemed to me to be heavy-handed in its themes -- characters are constantly discussing what it means to be "free," with the kind of self-consciousness that takes the reader out of the story. The opportunity for meditation on the nature of freedom is already there in the narrative without needing to call so much explicit attention to itself. The same could easily be said about the many conversations about how "the times are changing."
The characters didn't really come alive for me either. Sugar has little to distinguish her from any number of other spunky, ahead-of-their-times protagonists in historical novels, Beau is essentially just Ducks from last year's Tracks, and many of the supporting characters are far too eager to utter tired lines such as Missus Beale's: "Sugar already has too many fancies in her head. It isn't natural."
Jewell Parker Rhodes is a well-respected author whose awards include a 2011 Coretta Scott King Honor for Ninth Ward. I think it's awesome that she's chosen an unusual setting for Sugar; I just wish that the novel as a whole lived up to its promise.
This review also appeared on abouttomock.blogspot.com
This book is amazing :)! Every moment was a joy. This kindhearted story about acceptance, resilience, and friendship truly touched my heart. Sugar, the main character, has a spirit that soars. She works on a sugar plantation during the Reconstruction era, living as an ex-slave. She endures grueling labor and is orphaned at an early age, yet there is nothing sappy about her adventurous spirit!
Befriending the plantation owner's son, Billy, gets her into trouble. Also, when the plantation imports Chinese workers for cheap labor, Sugar befriends Beau, who shares her love of tales. Living and striving under harsh conditions, these three characters triumph over adversity to prove friendship is stronger than prejudice.
Read it! Love it!
Befriending the plantation owner's son, Billy, gets her into trouble. Also, when the plantation imports Chinese workers for cheap labor, Sugar befriends Beau, who shares her love of tales. Living and striving under harsh conditions, these three characters triumph over adversity to prove friendship is stronger than prejudice.
Read it! Love it!