The Girl with the Louding Voice: A Novel by Abi Dare

The Girl with the Louding Voice: A Novel. Abi Dare. Penguin Publishing Group. February 2020. pb, 384 pp.; ISBN: 9781524746025.

Adunni wants to become educated, to learn and share that learning so that she will be known before she is seen.  This advice came from her mother but was cut off when her mother died and the family could not even afford the rent of their home.  However, Adunni goes on teaching her siblings to read and write and do simple math problems.  Her father had promised her mother this would continue but he breaks his promise and arranges a marriage for Adunni at the age of 14.  The dowry money sets her family up for comfort and Adunni marries a man with one goal, to have Adunni give birth to a boy.  Adunni is absolutely devastated. 

An unpredictable and devastating tragedy occurs and Adunni knows she will be killed unless she leaves her small town in Nigeria.  So, she escapes by running away to Lagos, a large city full of millionaires and successful merchants.  There she works for an entrepreneur who is not only very rich but also very cruel.  She regularly beats Adunni, whose only comfort are the books in her master’s library.  Unfortunately, the lady’s husband is a playboy whose behavior caused the loss of the last housemaid in Adunni’s position. 

Adunni has two good friends whose help will enable her to attain her dream of becoming a teacher.  This is the story of her journey to become a “louding voice,” replete with all of her challenges.  Adunni’s personality is the most captivating part of this story.  She has all the normal fears and sorrowful reactions to the cruelty around her but refuses to be daunted by them.  Others are thrown by her incessant questioning and curiosity but she survives their mockery and disbelief.  Some additional attention goes to Nigeria’s political condition which is on the verge of either democracy or a military dictatorship.  Adunni marvels at the wealth Nigeria has attained and its prominent place in the world economy.

The Girl with the Louding Voice… is a memorable read about the difficult but promising world of visions and dreams, about the need to move beyond superstition and prejudice, about the role of faith in which to center one’s life.  Remarkable and highly recommended read!  Great writing, Abi Dare!

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, A student and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, A Student and a Life-Changing Friendship. Michelle Kuo. Random House Publishing Group. July 2017. 320 pp.  ISBN#: 9780812997316.

Michelle Kuo is the child of immigrant Chinese parents.  Their expectations for their daughter are huge!  Michelle, however, wants to accomplish something meaningful with her life and she’s not sure that fulfillment includes only a posh job with a similar salary and home with a well-known business firm.  After graduating from Harvard University, Michelle puts decisions on hold and decides to become a Teach for America volunteer in Helena, Arkansas.  This account is just as much about Michelle’s internal life as it is what happens in her new school where abilities are negligible and interest is phenomenally non-existent.  Michelle describes the influences in her life that brought her to this moment.  What is absent from the noble speeches of African-American leaders is the agonizing difficulty of working in areas where poverty, racism, and hopelessness are rampant.

Here, however, is the magic within this nonfiction account.  Little by little, Michelle manages to show the students she cares and they begin to change in incremental ways.  The changes proceed so slowly one wonders what kind of future these students will have.  A year later students who were illiterate are beginning to read simple books and learn.  Michelle takes these students into junior high novels and autobiographies that enable students to consider not just on a reading level but also about self-worth and possibilities they couldn’t envision before meeting Michelle Kuo.

Funding ends the program, and Michelle goes to law school.  Upon graduating, she learns that one of her students, Patrick, has been arrested for murder.  The rest of the account is about her taking up a teacher-student relationship with Patrick, teaching him to read, watching him change from a condemned prisoner to a free citizen who pursues hope on his own, all of it due to the patient, caring attention of Michelle.  However, Michelle gives the credit for this transformation to the authors who penned the novels and nonfiction books she reads with Patrick.  Readers fall in love with these authors anew as they observe how words and sentences casually read are perceived as life-changing revelations to be contemplated and venerated by the Patricks of this world.

This is a magnificent story, invaluable because of its poignancy and limitless possibilities evident on almost every page.  This story is must reading for pessimists and optimists regarding the future of American youth!  Outstanding!