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ocean_cactus 's review for:
Sugar
by Jewell Parker Rhodes
This is my last book for the library reading for my child's school. I liked this book. Supervising adults should know that there are some descriptions of the violence and sadness families experienced under slavery (nothing sexual, but things like whipping, working while sick, withholding pay, family separation, not knowing the fate of family members, extreme poverty. etc.). The main character is an orphan, cared for by another family (the female figure in that family is not especially warm, but she does care for the main character). This book is set just after legal slavery was ended, but the workers still live in a state of slavery - I think this is a great choice, showing the difference between de jure and de facto slavery during Reconstruction.
The book also introduces an additional ethnic group, the Chinese workers. The author does a nice job of painting the initial doubts and fear on each side of the two groups who work in the fields. This might be a quirk of YA fiction, the pacing of the book, or just how the story went, but I found the reconciliation of the two groups to be a little quicker than seemed realistic. That two young people could make friends, yes; that they could so quickly bring the communities together, maybe not? However, the ways in which the two ethnic groups discover their similarities are very sweet and age-appropriate: stories, food, the loss of being far from ancestral lands, play/music, pets.
The main character, Sugar, also has a friendship with the plantation owner's son, Billy. The two play together and go exploring on the river. I'm not sure I liked this element as much, as the innocence of their friendship always seemed a little fraught to me. To be fair, this was acknowledged in the book because the main character does directly confront Billy about his lack of experience doing the sort of jobs she does, how free he is to leave the plantation, etc. However, while children are innocent, I sometimes felt that this friendship strained the bounds of credulity - during that time, it seemed like a lot for pre-adolescents to cross both color and gender lines. Would this have happened at all? Or happened like this? I don't know, but this is a small quibble. What I liked less was Billy's transformation: he briefly takes to working in the fields alongside the workers and, as a result, the work becomes more humane / bearable. Suddenly, the landowner's family becomes more considerate of their workers. How I wish that this might have been so. That said, there are good people in every era (maybe not ever enough, but some), so if showing Billy's transformation and the changes this brought to his family helps children understand this, then I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. That said, I thought the first half of the book was stronger than the second half.
Would I let my child read this? Absolutely. I would highly recommend this book.
The book also introduces an additional ethnic group, the Chinese workers. The author does a nice job of painting the initial doubts and fear on each side of the two groups who work in the fields. This might be a quirk of YA fiction, the pacing of the book, or just how the story went, but I found the reconciliation of the two groups to be a little quicker than seemed realistic. That two young people could make friends, yes; that they could so quickly bring the communities together, maybe not? However, the ways in which the two ethnic groups discover their similarities are very sweet and age-appropriate: stories, food, the loss of being far from ancestral lands, play/music, pets.
The main character, Sugar, also has a friendship with the plantation owner's son, Billy. The two play together and go exploring on the river. I'm not sure I liked this element as much, as the innocence of their friendship always seemed a little fraught to me. To be fair, this was acknowledged in the book because the main character does directly confront Billy about his lack of experience doing the sort of jobs she does, how free he is to leave the plantation, etc. However, while children are innocent, I sometimes felt that this friendship strained the bounds of credulity - during that time, it seemed like a lot for pre-adolescents to cross both color and gender lines. Would this have happened at all? Or happened like this? I don't know, but this is a small quibble. What I liked less was Billy's transformation: he briefly takes to working in the fields alongside the workers and, as a result, the work becomes more humane / bearable. Suddenly, the landowner's family becomes more considerate of their workers. How I wish that this might have been so. That said, there are good people in every era (maybe not ever enough, but some), so if showing Billy's transformation and the changes this brought to his family helps children understand this, then I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. That said, I thought the first half of the book was stronger than the second half.
Would I let my child read this? Absolutely. I would highly recommend this book.