Yolandas Genius - Softcover

Fenner, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689821727 ISBN 13: 9780689821721

Publisher: Aladdin, 1998

Synopsis

After moving from Chicago to Grand River, Michigan, fifth grader Yolonda, big and strong for her age, determines to prove that her younger brother is not a slow learner but a true musical genius.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Yolanda is a great big girl and strong for her age, bigger and stronger and smarter than anyone else in the fifth grade. She is cool and streetwise, too, and afraid of no one. It's easy for her to watch out for her little, first-grade brother, Andrew. But their mother, a legal professional and a widow, is concerned about crime and drugs in her children's Chicago school. She moves them all to a smaller and, she hopes, smaller town.
Yolanda, at first, is scornful of her new town. And Andrew, who never talks much, is having trouble learning to read. What he loves to do is play on the old harmonica given to him as a baby by his father to teethe on and which he's kept blowing ever since. He can imitate any sound he hears, like bacon sizzling, or express any mood he feels, like the freshness of an early morning. Yolanda understands that that's the way he "talks." She is convinced Andrew is a true genius with a great musical gift. But no one else believes it--not her mother, nor Andrew's teachers, not even wonderful Aunt Tiny in Chicago. Yolanda sets out to open up adult eyes, a task whose strategies will call on far more than her physical toughness. Her plans crystallize on a visit back to Chicago to enjoy the great annual blues festival with Aunt Tiny.
Carol Fenner, whose previous book Randall's Wall has reached a wide audience throughout the country, has created a daring heroine in Yolanda and a warm portrayal of an African-American family in a story that moves with mounting intensity to a dramatic, believable, and a wholly satisfying conclusion.

From Booklist:

Gr. 4^-6. A beautifully drawn portrait of an African American family that escapes the mean streets of Chicago by moving to a small Michigan town. Nearing the end of first grade, Yolonda's younger brother, Andrew, is still unable to read, and Yolonda's widowed mother worries about him and scoffs at Yolonda's dogged insistence that he is a musical genius. Now Yolonda must use all her physical and mental powers to devise a plan to prove to her mother and the world that Andrew is a child prodigy. Dynamic characters and fresh dialogue combine with a compelling story line to draw readers into Yolonda's world. Preteen girls especially will identify with Yolonda's yearning to be noticed by handsome Stoney Buxton and with the awkwardness she experiences at being the new kid in town. Fenner's expertise is most evident in the implausible ending that she somehow makes totally believable. Lauren Peterson

About this edition

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0689821727
• ISBN 13: 9780689821721
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224