Isn’t the cover absolutely beautiful
for The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson? It conveys so much of the Caribbean flavor of
this story which is set in Barbados and centers on two sisters, Dionne (16) and
Phaedra (10). Their mother, Avril, is struggling and has sent the girls away
from Brooklyn to spend the summer with their grandmother, Hyacinth. She is a midwife and local “wise woman” who
exposes the sisters to family history and to another culture and way of
thinking. The pace of the story, to me, is slow and thoughtful as this debut author movingly
explores how both Dionne and Phaedra gradually come of age and learn to deal
with loss and opportunity in different ways.
This is a story about love – for
family and for people of different generations, for places, especially “home,” and
for self. I first read an excerpt of The Star Side of Bird Hill
in the Buzz Books promotional materials and I am grateful for an advance copy
from the publisher who has an online book club kit. The Star Side
of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson is scheduled to be released on Tuesday,
June 30th. It received a starred review
from Library Journal.
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