After a one week break, tonight I will be meeting with my Reader Advisory class to discuss our second to last genre: Multicultural Fiction.
For this week's class I read Dixieland Sushi by Cara Lockwood. Jen Nakamura Taylor is use to feeling like a stranger in a strange land. The product of a Japanese-American mother and good ol' Southern boy named Bubba, Jen was always a bit too exotic for her small hometown of Dixieland, Arkansas. Now a producer for a television morning show in Chicago, it has been five years since Jen has gone home. Career ambitions have prevented her from taking a vacation, but now a visit to Dixieland can no longer be avoided. Her beauty queen cousin is getting married (to Jen's girlhood crush no less), and Jen has no choice but to be a bridesmaid in the wedding. Thoughts of the groom lead Jen to reminisce about growing up in Dixieland. Jen has worked hard to overcome her past, but is it all about to catch up with her? Told in alternating chapters that take the reader back and forth between Jen's childhood and the present, this story is recommended to anyone who is interested in getting a better understanding of what it is like to be bi-racial in this country today, as well as anyone who made the journey through adolescence to adult in one piece.
This book had me from the very first page. I've got four words for you my friends: roller skating birthday party. Oh yes, the author was channeling a large part of my childhood when she wrote the flashback chapters. From her search for the perfect pair of L.A. Gear hightops to her families fascination with the television show Dallas, Jen was someone I knew. I borrowed this book from another library, but I think I'm going to have buy my own copy just so I can force my friends to read it. :-)
As far as tonight's class discussion goes, after the fiasco that was GLBTQ week I'm pretty sure that I am going to regret separating Multicultural into its own genre. Tune in tomorrow to see if a bloodbath ensued.
posted by Kelly @ 9:14 AM
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