Next teen classic deserved the designation

Ludell 

by Brenda Wilkinson



I'm kind of scared to say anything bad about this book.  It's the kind of book people can fall in love with and totally lose sight of why they love it.


I didn't (fall in love), but I'm glad I read it.   It evoked a time and a place and a people that I've seen only in glimpses...for all my life.  It was set in 1955 but not written until 1975, so I just bet it's an author writing from her memories, just as I did in my story Fountain Ave.

The book cover is wrong about the whole point of things.  It says, it's not easy growing up when you're poor....   Wrong!  That's not the point of the book--the story isn't about poverty.  The heroine isn't even all that poor--she's got a grandmother with a secure job.  She gets to buy hot dogs on Fridays, has decent clothes to wear, even if she doesn't always like them, has enough good plain food to eat every day.  Of course, enough's never enough for a growing kid, but please!  They had chicken for Sunday dinner!

They're working people, just like my folks were.  We didn't use to have a TV either, or an infinite supply of candy bars or a box of fancy toys.  We were working poor too.

But skipping the blurb on the cover, it was pretty darn good.  The author told a good story and she told the truth--no varnishing.  The truth from the perspective of a twelve-year-old, beloved, slightly sheltered, child.  I'll read it again--at least once.

Being an adult, I kind of wanted to hear the grown-ups' stories--how did Miss Johnson really feel about working so many hours to feed her kids?  Where were the men and what were they doing?  Why were the teachers such jerks?  Could they really not afford to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter to feed the kids who went hungry at lunch?

When I get through this year of challenge, I'm going to seek out a copy of the sequel and read it.
What I didn't like?  The writing style.  I don't mind dialect in a novel--Mark Twain's books where chock full of it.  But I hate it when authors misspell words that sound the same either way you spell them and they don't contribute to the rhythm and the poetry of the way people spoke.  I understand "shut yo mouf", "she cain run me outta nowhere", "gon bus all their brains out."   But what's the point of spelling Miss as Mis?  Sheez.