jennybeastie 's review for:

Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes

4.0

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An interesting story, set in reconstruction in a sugar plantation in Louisiana. Short chapters, interspersed with woodcuts, and the first book I've ever seen that talks about the Chinese workers who were brought in to cut cane after slavery was abolished. Sugar is a child without a family, cared for by the other freed slaves who staff the plantation. She's a strong character, and she refuses to be bound into a place -- she wants to see the world, she wants to make friends with the owner's son Billy and the new Chinese workers, she wants to find a path that doesn't harm her caretakers, the Beales.