The Good Braider

by Terry Farish

Overview

The Good Braider was selected as the 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:	509,836
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

As a child I had many secret loves and one was a book I tried to hide behind the stacks at my town library so it would always be there for me. As an adult, one of my greatest loves is also a book, The Old Man and the Sea. I remember when I first read it, in one lit corner of my house, my child asleep, reading for the first time Hemingway’s simple acts of human grace in that story. I also really like multicultural literature (see my blog at The Elephant Rag). One of my favorite stories I mention in The Elephant Rag is from Jamaica which offers a slang phrase for telling stories - “pop tory a me ears.” I continue to make discoveries under a single light in a quiet house. I share many of these stories in the literacy program I coordinate for the NH Humanities Council, Connections.

Editorial Reviews

In The Good Braider, Terry Farish creates a masterful triumph of character and story. Her Viola—strong, frank, tenderly wistful, and brave—is so expressive and endearing, that you will never again encounter a refugee from anywhere without remembering Viola and her family. This is a book of deep understanding and unforgettable empathy.” —NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, author of There Is No Long Distance

“Terry Farish seems to breathe the reader into the emotional spaces of war, exile, and refugee life. Teenaged Viola’s flight with her family from Sudan spirals into a search for hope in the face of irredeemable loss. The Good Braider is a delicate, stunning exploration of its young protagonist’s life and heart.” —UMA KRISHNASWAMI, author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything

From the Publisher

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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