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    Like Sisters on the Homefront
    Like Sisters on the Homefront
    Like Sisters on the Homefront
    Audiobook5 hours

    Like Sisters on the Homefront

    Written by Rita Williams-Garcia

    Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Rita Williams-Garcia’s masterful and bold Coretta Scott King Honor Book is fresh, funny, and powerfully relevant. This novel by a master storyteller and Newbery Honor-winning author is about one girl’s discovery of her family history—and her own place within it.

    When fourteen-year-old Gayle gets in trouble with a boy—again—her mother doesn’t give her a choice: Gayle is getting sent away from New York to her family down South, along with her baby, José.

    In a small town in Georgia, there is nowhere to go but church, nothing to do but chores, and no friends except her goody-goody, big-boned, kneesock-wearing cousin, Cookie. Gayle is stuck cleaning up after Great, the old family matriarch who stays upstairs in her bed.

    But the more she spends time with Cookie and Great, Gayle learns about her family’s history and secrets, stretching all the way back through the preachers and ancestors of the past. And slowly, the stories of her roots begin to change how Gayle sees her future.

    Like Sisters on the Homefront is a fast, gritty read about mistakes, second chances, and family. A strong choice for summer reading and for sparking conversation in the classroom or at home.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 30, 2019
    ISBN9780062997142
    Author

    Rita Williams-Garcia

    Rita Williams-Garcia's Newbery Honor Book, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Times bestseller. The two sequels, P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama, were both Coretta Scott King Author Award winners and ALA Notable Children’s Books. Her novel Clayton Byrd Goes Underground was a National Book Award finalist and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Youth/Teen Literature. Rita is also the author of five other distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book), Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); and Blue Tights. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, with her husband and has two adult daughters. You can visit her online at ritawg.com.

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    Reviews for Like Sisters on the Homefront

    4/5

    26 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is the book that made me fall in love with reading. I read it first in the 5th grade. I'm now 32 and read it again with a new understanding. Definitely a must read for your preteen, teenager, and yourself.
    • 5/5
      Amazing storyline, character development, and completed ending. Glad I read
    • 4/5
      I thought this sounded interesting, because I can't even begin to know what it would be like to be a twice pregnant, African american 14 year old. It's a great book. Hard to put down, and there's something deeply compelling about Gayle's hard shell -- I was fascinated at the idea that one of the things your community does for you is to fight with with you, That snapping at each other is a healing thing. I loved her journey, even though it is certainly a hard one. And I particularly loved that she was always 100% into her kid. Not always a stellar exemplar of parenting, but definitely very attached and committed to him.

      Being reissued, got the advanced reader's copy from Edelweiss.
    • 5/5
      Gayle is a fourteen year old girl who lives in New York with her mother, her brother, and her baby boy. Gayle is tough and street smart, but ignorant about life outside of her neighborhood. When she gets pregnant a second time, her mother takes her to a clinic for an abortion and then ships her off to Georgia to live with her Uncle Luther (a preacher) and his family. Gayle, who thinks she already knows everything, might just discover that she has a few more lessons to learn about life and family.Excellent. Gayle's voice is fresh and strong.
    • 4/5
      Gayle is 14 and pregnant with baby #2. Mama Ruth Bell is not about to sit still for this newest mistake, so she marches Gayle down to the neighborhood clinic for an abortion. Afterwards, Gayle's rebelliousness kicks into high gear and Mama packs up Gayle and her baby - Jose/Emmanuel - and puts them on a plane "down souf" to their people. Gayle fumes all the way to Georgia - the indignity of having to leave her "girls" and her "man" PLUS suddenly having to take complete responsibility for her 7 month old son AND knowing that the people who will meet her at the airport really don't want her - all combine to put Gayle at the height of nasty when she finally meets her family. It doesn't take Gayle long to realize messin' with Uncle Luther is definitely NOT a smart thing to do, and it sure doesn't take her long to size up her girlish cousin Constance, also known as "Cookie." Life looks like it will be chores, church, and more chores until Gayle meets her Great Grandmother Abigail, known to the family as "Great." Great begins to change Gayle with her stories of family and times before; Gayle's presence also has an effect on Great, who finds her tart tongue and manages to persuade Gayle to fix up a batch of the family "recipe" to help ease her way to paradise. Gayle slowly comes to realize that she shares a rich history with her mother, cousin and Great, and that she and her son have much to contribute to the family and the world. Gayle's struggle to accept herself and find her place is one we all can relate to, and Williams-Garcia tells it beautifully. This is a book to be read and cherished. Although peppered with raw language, Sisters on the Homefront is a lovely book that emphasizes the importance of family, history and faith. Gayle's changing relationships drive the story and it is satisfying to see her "saved" not by her uptight, unhappy, Bible-thumping Uncle (who really isn't all that bad!) but by her "recipe" drinking, healer-grandmother. The idea that we are all part of a continuous story and that we as individuals have a lot to offer is one that many young women like Gayle need to hear. This is a book you will not soon forget. Read it and weep