The Good Braider

by Terry Farish

Overview

The Good Braider was selected as the 2013 Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year and a book of Outstanding Merit.

In spare free verse laced with unforgettable images, Viola's strikingly original voice sings out the story of her family's journey from war-torn Sudan, to Cairo, and finally to Portland, Maine. Here, in the sometimes too close embrace of the local Southern Sudanese Community, she dreams of South Sudan while she tries to navigate the strange world of America—a world where a girl can wear a short skirt, get a tattoo, or even date a boy; a world that puts her into sharp conflict with her traditional mother who, like Viola, is struggling to braid together the strands of a displaced life. Terry Farish's haunting novel is not only a riveting story of escape and survival, but the universal tale of a young immigrant's struggle to build a life on the cusp of two cultures.

The author of The Good Braider has donated this book to the Worldreader program.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477816288
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	08/20/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	396,606
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

Editorial Reviews

Gr 9 Up—The Good Braider follows Viola on a journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the folds of a Sudanese community in Maine. Viola's story, told in free verse, is difficult to read without a constant lurking sense of both dread and hope. In the opening scene she gazes at the curve of the back of a boy walking the street in front of her, only to view his senseless execution moments later. This tension never completely dissipates, though it takes on different forms throughout her story; by the end it is replaced not by the fear of execution or of the lecherous soldier who forces her to trade herself for her family's safety, but by the tension of walking the line between her mother's cultural expectations and the realities of her new country. Yet while Farish so lyrically and poignantly captures Viola's wrenching experience leaving her home, navigating the waiting game of refugee life, and acculturating into the United States, she's equally successful in teasing out sweet moments of friendship and universal teenage experiences. Viola's memorable, affecting voice will go far to help students step outside of their own experience and walk a mile in another's shoes.—Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ

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