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Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Haunting Ninth Ward A Vivid Tribute to NOLA's Survivor Spirit
5:18 AM
(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Mama Ya-Ya also has The Sight. As Hurricane Katrina gathers strength, preparing to bear down on New Orleans, she's beset by visions of destruction and death. Lanesha's frightened by Mama Ya-Ya's predictions, but what can she do? She has no money, no place to go. Even if she could convince Mama Ya-Ya to evacuate, the elderly woman wouldn't last long in the overcrowded Superdome. The only solution is to prepare for the monster storm as best she can and pray that Katrina will have mercy on their poor souls.

Ninth Ward, a new middle grade book by adult author Jewell Parker Rhodes, captures the horror unleashed by Hurricane Katrina in a vivid, atmospheric story that will haunt readers long after they finish reading it. Lanesha's a wholly sympathetic character, one who earned not just my pity, but my admiration. I rooted for her from the first page of her harrowing story to the last. And she did not disappoint. Although the ending of Ninth Ward isn't as happy as I wanted it to be (all too realistic, unfortunately), I found the tale as a whole to be an engrossing, inspiring and very fitting tribute to all the people who defied Katrina by resisting, rebuilding and restoring hope to a devastated city ironically called The Big Easy.
(Readalikes: Although I haven't finished Salvage the Bones, a gritty YA novel by Jesmyn Ward, it's similar [in subject matter, anyway] to Ninth Ward.)
Grade: B
If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for scary images/scenes of peril
To the FTC, with love: I borrowed a finished copy of Ninth Ward from the library at my children's elementary school as part of my volunteer work with the school's reading program.
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