The Good Braider

Gr 9 Up—Sixteen-year-old Viola's family leaves their home in South Sudan after she is raped by a soldier. The arduous journey brings hunger, tragedy, and years in a refugee camp before they relocate to Portland, ME. Consumed by the horrors of her past and a typical teen's desire to fit in, Viola struggles to create an identity that incorporates her African heritage and American freedom. Farish (The Cat Who Loved Potato Soup) creates fully realized characters in spare but lyrical free verse. After the rape, for example, Viola's grandmother braids her hair, "squeezing out the tears." Hair-braiding is an ongoing metaphor for the healing hands of women and Viola's task of weaving together the strands of her life. This audio production accentuates the text by pausing between poems to make the breaks clear. Actress Cherise Boothe differentiates characters smoothly. Viola speaks with a lilting accent while her redheaded American crush uses sharper consonants and a deeper tone. Fans of Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water and Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again will appreciate Viola's odyssey "from one country to another and one life to the next." Listeners will grow in empathy for survivors who seek freedom from fear and to ultimately adapt to life in the United States.—Toby Rajput, National Louis University, Skokie, IL