Not a long read, took 4 weeks. Can stretch it to 5-6 weeks for a Core class.

For Immersion and Extended you can do many additional activities with respect to some of the cultural pieces in the book.

Female-centered story with strong female leads. 

Hook: A young girl (age 10) moves to live with mother in Paris after only living with grandmother in Guadeloupe.

Themes include, coming of age and identifying with one's roots.

Plot: 10 year old girl lives with grandmother. Mother disappeared when she was very young, we don’t hear about her in the first part of the story

Mother moved to France. The mother sends a letter to daughter and asks her to come live with her and her stepfather and baby brother. The daughter agrees. 

Contrast between life in Guadeloupe and living in Paris. 

Author struggled with her own identity, as she spent time in her youth between Paris and Guadeloupe. She currently lives in Guadeloupe. 

Book might be exploring her own story about feeling different and feeling othered and coming to terms with her two identities. 

These struggles are talked about from both author and character perspectives. 

Themes: having multiple identities, living in the intercultural space. 

Classroom use:

• No complex vocabulary.

• No content warnings - a safe story.

• Creole in the book. Chance to introduce students to this. Creole is translated in the footnotes on some of the pages (it is not discussed all the time in the book).

• Many opportunities to study the culture of Guadeloupe.

• Cultural references (la culture arabe, la culture guadeloupéenne).