Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Making an unusually auspicious debut, Holt offers a unique coming-of-age tale. The year is 1957 and the place is Saitter, La., a small town where prejudices reach far beyond skin color. Twelve-year-old Tiger Parker, exceptionally bright and also good at baseball, is shunned by the girls in her class because her mother, Corrina, and her father, Lonnie, are "different" ("Folks around here call it retarded, but I like `slow' better"). Through Tiger's perceptive first-person narration, readers watch her grow painfully aware of her mother's limitations and become embarrassed by Corrina's childish behavior. She calms herself with the knowledge that her grandmother, who heads the household, has "enough brains for all of us." But Granny dies suddenly, and Tiger is left with an excruciating choice: Should she live with her sophisticated aunt in Baton Rouge, where she could find freedom but would break her parents' hearts, or should she forgo the opportunity and take on more responsibilities at home? While readers may not agree with Tiger's decision, they will admire her courage, loyalty and love for her parents. Holt conveys the innocence of Tiger's fun-loving mother and hardworking father without overdramatizing their intellectual deficiencies. The author presents and handles a sticky dilemma with remarkable grace. Ages 9-12. (May)
School Library Journal
Gr 4-9-Set in the South in the late 1950s, this coming-of-age story explores a 12-year-old girl's struggle to accept her grandmother's death, her mentally deficient parents, and the changing world around her. By Kimberly Willis Holt. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
In her first YA novel, Holt gives a fresh theme sensitive and deliberate treatment: The bright child of "slow" parents comes to terms with her family's place in the community. Tiger Ann Parker is smart; she's gotten straight A's and won the spelling bee five years in a row. People in her rural 1950s Louisiana community can't figure out where she got her brains, because everyone knows that her parents, are mentally challenged. Her mother has the capabilities of a six-year-old, while her father, a good steady worker at the nursery down the road, can't manage writing or simple math. Tiger loves her parents, but as she enters middle school she becomes increasingly aware that she's socially ostracized by her classmates; her affection for her family becomes mixed with shame and anger at their differences. When Tiger's loving grandmother, who has always run the household, has a fatal heart attack, Tiger is invited to live with her glamorous Aunt Doreen in Baton Rouge. Tempted to move away and reinvent herself, Tiger ultimately comes to appreciate her parents' strengths and her own as well. Tiger, with her warring feelings, is a believable and likable narrator, and while the offerings of big-city living are too patly rejected, a well-developed setting and fully-realized characters make this an unusually strong coming-of-age story. (Fiction. 10-14)
From the Publisher
This lyrical first novel brings fresh perspective to the guilt and anger and caring that surround the mentally disabled. All the characters . . . are drawn with warmth but no patronizing reverence.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“So honest is Holt's portrayal of Tiger, Momma, Daddy, Granny, and the rest that one wonders if she wrote their story while sitting in a rocker on a Saitter front porch, under the vast promises of a Louisiana Sky.” —The Horn Book, Starred Review
“An unusually auspicious debut.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
