Hush, by Jacqueline Woodson

Retrieved from: the library
(0399231145), 2001
Suggested by: found it on the shelf, remember reading reviews of it when it was published
My Ratings: 8 Merit, 9 Interest, 8 Fun

I read this on lunch hours over the last month or so. It's quite a short book, but I only read about 10 pages at a time usually.

This is the basic Young Adult Problem Novel in all its best clothes. Really, there's not much to this story, but it is beautifully told. Toswiah Green has a perfect life and family, until her father agrees to testify against cops who shot a black kid claiming they thought he was armed. Now Toswiah is Evie Thomas and they live a long ways from Denver and the rest of their extended family and all of their friends. Her father has sunk into depression: being a cop is all he's ever wanted, and he can't do that anymore. Her mother has taken up with Jehovah's Witnesses to soothe her pain. And her sister doesn't seem to care that their old life is completely over.

A wonderful book about a girl struggling to figure out who she is and what is important in her world.