What I Loved

about The Ninth Ward was that it wasn't just a book about Hurricane Katrina. This was a book about a person who happened to be involved in Hurricane Katrina.  A lot of times books about an "event" have a main character, but the main character doesn't seem to have existed before the "event" and we can't surely know how the main character will continue to live after the "event" because all we know about him or her is what she or he was like during the "event."  Jewell Parker Rhodes characters in both Towers Falling and in Ninth Ward have lives before and we learn about them and we seem to get an understanding of how they will continue on after the book/"event" ends.  That seems like it would be a tricky thing to do.  But wow, Jewell Parker Rhodes just has that ability to make me care so much about Deja and Lenesha and I am so glad I got to "know" them as people.
AND this is totally cool- I just wrote to her because I found out she is from Pittsburgh!  Can you believe it!  And she wrote me back!  Even though she was on a plane headed to New York.  Totally cool!  She is from Manchester, where I met the Robinsons when I was in seminary school.  So like a big dork, I asked her if she knew them!  Dork!
I am off on a tangent.
Anyway...a great book, a must-read.  And now I will be listening to Sugar and Bayou Magic!