Sugar Town Queens

Sugar Town Queens

YA fiction
"Annalisa calls our room 'snug' as if the word alone has the
power to change the fact that we have a single light bulb dangling
over the kitchen table and a rusty tap with an off-and-on-again water
supply. It's the twenty-first century, but we live like the people in
the black-and-white photographs from the 1950s."
In Sugar Town Queens Malla Nunn takes readers to a part of the
world most of us will never visit: a shanty town in South Africa.
Although apartheid is supposed to be a thing of the past, extreme
residential segregation is very real. Amandla, Nunn's narrator, who
is biracial, and her mother, Annalisa (white) live in a neighborhood
of deteriorating shacks and extreme poverty.
As long as Amandla has known her mother Annalisa has been
strange. She dresses and acts differently from her neighbors and
keeps to herself. She has frequent memory lapses. She is sure that
her dreams will come true, including the one of Amandla's father
returning to stay, and does bizarre things to make them happen.
For all her fifteen years it's been just Amandla and her mom.
She longs for a large, multigenerational family. But when a scrap of
paper in her mother's pocketbook with an address leads her to her
medically frail maternal grandmother the unfolding family
constellation is anything but warm and cozy. In fact bigotry,
cruelty, denial, and cowardice are recurring themes.
Join Amandla, her friends, and a really cute guy who's noticing
her as they defy her mother's orders to unravel the secrets of her
family and heritage. It's quite the roller coaster ride.
On a purrrsonal note, this has been quite the weekend! The big news
was an early Christmas present I received in the mail. The State of
Maine saw fit to send essential workers checks. I had no idea that
was a thing. I can tell you mine is going right in my tuition savings
account. In me the state is making a very wise investment. Saturday
was National Cookie Day. I celebrated by making oatmeal raisin
cookies. And I've been really enjoying being able to stay in my cozy,
warm home without having to bus commute anywhere. (Jules)
WE STILL DON'T HAVE A TREE!!! I WANT MY TREE!!! (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the person or people who decided
that essential workers deserve checks. A lot of people need them for
really needful things like shelter and food.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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