This powerful verse novel is evocative of both "Caminar" and "Sold", with a young child in a different culture growing up in a simple, gentle world, then that is ripped away by various circumstances. In this case, author Pinkney chronicles the genocide of Darfur in southern Sudan in 2003 and 2004. The poems are delicious and flow beautifully from one to another. Ms. Pinkney's ability to capture everyday life is obvious from the get-go in a couplet from one of the first pieces: "Words flap from her/like giddy chickens escaping their pen." Later in the book, the images and words mingle to create a strong feeling of grief as Amira's world collapses. The images, too, are smart, in that they are not overdrawn. The idea is that these pictures are ones created by Amira, not a professional artist, and they help to convey her tale without overwhelming the story. Like in "Caminar" the words begin to fall apart, drifting away from each other, as war enters the village of the young girl. Amira is hugely dimensional, and it is in this that she jumps off the page as a real person, even though she is a fiction. It was a lovely book, and one that would have had me reaching for tissues if I hadn't been reading it in public (the "Sudan Flowers" are, in actuality, plastic garbage bags -- which is heart-wrenching in the telling of it), but there was one thing that bugged, a bit. The ending was abrupt, and circumspect. It came in a matter of pages and I can't tell you exactly what it meant, or what happened. Aside from this, the book is a treasure which should touch students who read it, and Ms. Pinkney is successful, I think, in her stated goal of helping kids understand this tragedy without overwhelming them. The afterword and notes are very helpful to those who wish to learn more about the story, and this culture. A "human", touching tale, overall.
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