Listen for the Fig Tree

This is a wondeful book that I never tire of reading over and over again. I read this book when I was a very young girl and I must say that after all these years I still enjoy this book immensley. Marvina "Muffin" Johnson is a blind, African American teenager not only coping with blindness, but more importantly coping with the death of her father who she loved dearly, and coping with a mother " Leola" who is loosing herself in drink and despair over the death of her husband. But despite blindness and grief " Muffin" has the love and support of neighbors " Mr Dale," " Mr Willie Williams," "Tank" " Miss Geneva", a friend "Deeta", and a love interest "Ernie" who all embrace "Muffin" during her many times of need. The author Sharon Bell Mathis has created a intricate world of sight and sounds that transforms the reader into a place and time that is so passionate, so intense, and so very real that the reader is longing to know what will happen long after the last page has been read. What a wonderful little book. A very satisfied reader.

The contents of this book had a tremendous affect on my early years. I read this book at a very early age and I can recall being encouraged by it's contents. I would recommend that all young people being challenged with life read this book. The fact that she was blind was overshadowed by the true challenges in her life. Alcholism, abuse, death, etc..... Very powerful!

This is a powerfully written book that treats the young heroine's blindness unsentimentally and believably as she deals with her father's violent death, her mother's drinking, an attempted sexual assault by an older neighbor and her budding relationship with a young man. This is a thoroughly outstanding treatment that will inform readers of any age about blindness, while treating the blindness as simply a fact of her life as she deals with the real and wrenching issues pulling at her. The love for her mother and the tension with her drinking are well handled, and the boy-girl aspect is also not over-romanticised. (Wish we had a sequel about them.