Not a comfortable story, but one of the few I've seen to address a DV related murder from a child's point of view. Very faith based, but Serenity's journey feels authentic, and her grandparents' struggle to keep her and her brother safe through middle and high school is an extremely realistic portrayal. Solid tween coming-of-age story -- Serenity is repeatedly confronted with the need to make up her own mind about situations that have no clear cut right or wrong. She finds a way to navigate that -- in keeping her friends' secrets (or not), in deciding if a boy is a good relationship fit, in worrying over her brother's choices. There's a lot going on. ( )

diverse middlegrade fiction (black 8th-grade girl and her 7th-grade brother deal with grief after the unexpected loss of their mother and absent, abusive father - set in Portland, OR).

This is a story full of potential trauma--a very ambitious one for a debut novel, even for an author who goes on to win numerous awards. I read to page 158 and could easily have kept going, but I felt the characters were relatively one-dimensional--Erica is super perfect, Serenity's religious, well-meaning grandparents are just that, her friends and classmates in school behave predictably like 8th-grade girls. Serenity slowly reveals the trauma surrounding her mom's death (presumably she'll have a major breakthrough in therapy by the time the book is over), but most of the time she functions as though it never happened, whereas her brother shows every sign of making the same bad decisions that plague the neighborhood boys and men. It's a good book, just not yet on the same level as Piecing me Together or Kheryn Callender's Hurricane Child.

The pastel-colored, cartoony cover reminds me of the Cupcake Diaries series; I much prefer the more realistic, more mature-looking portrait on the redesign, for a story that deals with much more serious topics. ( )

So glad this got a new cover. This looks like upper-elementary sweetness and light, but it deals with some serious trauma. It's warm and engaging, though; I might give it to middle schoolers who need some bibliotherapy around issues of parental death or abuse or generally taking control of their own lives, but I can't imagine any kid who's okay reading about those issues wouldn't be caught up in it. Religion is shown as a strong support through difficult times, with realistic questioning of belief. There's a brief poetry exercise at the beginning of each chapter -- easy to gloss over if it's not your thing, but a good classroom connection for young writers. (The author is a poetry teacher.) ( )

Moving story about coping with loss. ( )

This is not a sad book, but when I finished, I sure felt sad that a book with these themes needed to be written for kids who have been through similar trials and tribulations. Like the powerful book Pull by B. A. Binns, this is another book about a boy and a girl who must go live with their grandparents after the father kills the mother. Also as in Pull, the mother had been physically abused for some time, with the father assuring the male child that this is one of the ways in which “manhood” is demonstrated. Whereas Pull features teens a bit older, the two kids in What Momma Left Me are in the seventh and eighth grade. Also, the grandparents in this book are very involved in the church; in fact, the grandfather is the pastor of the Restoration Baptist Church. This book can probably be categorized as “Christian fiction.”

Each chapter title is a part of The Lord’s Prayer, which is cleverly dovetailed to reflect what is going on the life of the characters. (For example, in Chapter One, titled “Our Father,” we learn about the father of the kids.) The narrator is Serenity Evans, age 13, who is ostensibly writing this as entries in a diary.

As the story begins, Serenity and her brother Danny have just moved in with their grandparents, where they come to learn that men (like their grandfather) can actually dispense love instead of just fear, and where they come to terms with their losses:

"Memories of my momma pop in my head at the most unexpected times. Like when I sing the lyrics to a song I didn’t even realize I knew. Momma is a song that I can’t forget. Her melody comes to mind and I realize that traces of her song are still here.”

Serenity has a crisis of faith when things keep going wrong; she thinks God is cruel and has forgotten about her and her friends. After pretending too many times to be sick so she doesn’t have to go to church, she finally confesses her internal conflict to her grandmother. Her Grandma has the perfect answer for Serenity, explaining it to her in a way they can both relate to: Serenity’s mother’s fabulous red velvet cake. Her Grandma explains: you would hate to eat just the oil, or just the flour, or just the raw eggs. But in the end, when they all come together, something beautiful emerges. Life, Grandma says, is like that too.

Discussion: In a bit of twist on the concept of “whitewashing,” we have a wonderfully sweet cover featuring an adorable young black girl holding a cake. The color of the protagonist is not whitewashed at all, but one might say that the plot is, in the sense of glossing over or covering up. This is a book about domestic violence, child sexual abuse, drug trading, and drug use. Yes, it is all soft-pedaled to be appropriate for a middle-grade or tween audience, and it is furthermore couched in a great deal of religious explanation and inspiration. But seriously, look at the cover. I love it, but maybe for a different kind of book!

Evaluation: Uplifting story about how to cope when bad things happen in your life told by a very likeable young girl in a Christian context. It is promulgated as a young adult book, but to me, the writing seems more characteristic of middle grade books. ( )