18. American Street by Ibi Zoboi

read on my iPhone
20117, Balzer & Bray
336 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 3/25/17
Goodreads rating: 4.14 (601 ratings)
My rating: 2 and 4
Setting: Contemporary inner city Detroit

First line/s: "If only I could break the glass between me and Manman with my thoughts alone."

My comments: I have no clue how or what to rate this book.  It took me to a place that I don't know.  At all.  What happens when a smart immigrant girl from Haiti is thrust directly into the midst of the toughest streets of contemporary Detroit without the mother who has always nurtured and guided her and with only her voodoo spirit guides and street-savvy cousins?  Will that girl do anything - anything - to get her imprisoned mother back?  I don't know what it's like to be a black American or a black immigrant, I don't know what it's like to live in the inner-city with its full share of violence and drugs.  I don't know anything about Haiti, or voodoo.  And a much as I try to empathize, all I know is what I hear on the news.  This book takes you much closer than the news.  Much.  Closer.  And it's heartbreaking.

Goodreads synopsis:  The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun.
          On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie—a good life.
          But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola’s mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit’s west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own.
          Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?

Hope for Haiti – Jesse Joshua Watson

Illustrated by the author
G. P. Putnam’s Sons (Penguin), 2010
$16.99
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Yellow
Illustrations: Acrylic

The book begins with this author's note:

"When I was young, my father worked as a designer for the humanitarian aid organization World Vision International. He brought home photos of kids from poverty-stricken countries, and specifically Haiti. I spent my childhood wishing there was something I could do to ease the people's suffering. As I got older, I saw how my own country was further impoverishing Haiti with its economic and political policies. Then, when the earthquake hit, I felt void of hope...until I started seeing photos of children playing soccer amidst the chaos. And in this I found great hope for Haiti, that even in the most tragic of circumstances children are resilient and will overcome. This is the hope I want to share with children everywhere. --- J.J.W."

Living in the soccer stadium in a new home made of six posts holding up a piece of tin with three sheets for walls, a young boy despairs. Then he sees a girl kicking a ball she has made from rags and rubber bands, and a soccer game ensues. And for just these few moments, these kids think of nothing but the joy of the game. A real soccer ball is introduced, a special soccer ball, and the world seems a little brighter for these kids.

There's a lot to think about here. The soccer ball was an old ball that had been autographed by Haiti's most influential soccer player, Manno Sanon. Its owner was smart. "We can let go of the past," the man tells us. "Right now we need to think about the future. And the future is you."