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Lädt ... What the Fireflies Knewvon Kai Harris
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Fiction.
African American Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:A Marie Claire Book Club pick Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by *Marie Claire* *Teen Vogue* *Buzzfeed* *Essence* *Ms. Magazine* *NBCNews.com* *Bookriot* *Bookbub* and more! ??Harris rewrites the coming-of-age story with Black girlhood at the center.? ??New York Times Book Review In the vein of Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones and Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, a coming-of-age novel told by almost-eleven-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), as she and her sister try to make sense of their new life with their estranged grandfather in the wake of their father's death and their mother's disappearance. An ode to Black girlhood and adolescence as seen through KB's eyes, What the Fireflies Knew follows KB after her father dies of an overdose and the debts incurred from his addiction cause the loss of the family home in Detroit. Soon thereafter, KB and her teenage sister, Nia, are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing, Michigan. Over the course of a single sweltering summer, KB attempts to navigate a world that has turned upside down. Her father has been labeled a fiend. Her mother's smile no longer reaches her eyes. Her sister, once her best friend, now feels like a stranger. Her grandfather is grumpy and silent. The white kids who live across the street are friendly, but only sometimes. And they're all keeping secrets. As KB vacillates between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, she is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. A dazzling and moving novel about family, identity, and race, What the Fireflies Knew poignantly reveals that heartbreaking but necessary component of growing up??the realization that loved ones can be flawed and that the perfect family we all dream of looks differe Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:![]()
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After the death of their father Kenyatta and her older sister Nia are driven by their mother from Detroit to Michigan to spend time with their grandfather, whom they hardly know. Their mother leaves them there without much of an explanation. It soon dawns on the girls that they don’t know when their mother will return to pick them up. Will she return at all?
Kenyatta has always been close to her sister Nia and is quite upset that Nia withdraws from her and seems more interested in boys and girls her own age. Both Nia and Kenyatta have been hurt by family members close to them. During the long, hot summer with their grandfather, the girls confront isolation, alienation and fear. They learn how to fend for themselves and understand that they can ask for help. Grandfather and Kennyatta get to know each other as he reluctantly shares some family history with his granddaughter. They witness some beautiful moments watching fireflies. Some of the girls’ experiences are difficult to read about. As they are already hurting they seek out more hurt. Yet the monologues in Kenyatta’s mind and also the dialogues between characters read effortlessly. We are witnessing scenes directly. The way dialogues connect Kenyatta, Nia and grandfather is the reason I embraced the story. There is hope, love and goodwill to move forward together.
I also read the book because I am white and want to understand black girlhood. Many aspects are universal: I was mean to my sisters in the way Nia is, I suffered - when my parents kept secrets - and passed the suffering on, boys I met as a teenager acted just like the ones here. Racism by neighbors I did not encounter as I grew up in Germany when society was quite homogeneous. (