Mama's Window

I was overjoyed to find Mama's Window, especially after viewing the fine video, Oh, Freedom After While, written and produced by Lynn Rubright, telling the story of the sharecropper's protest of 1939, spearheaded by the Rev. Owen Whitfield. Even though Sugar in Mama's Window was a fictionalized version of Whitfield as a child, he and the other characters in this heartwarming tale were beautifully and authentically drawn and came alive as a salute to the simplicity and, ultimately, the purity of life in one tiny shack in the Mississippi Delta many years ago. There are lessons to be learned and love to give and receive. I was captivated by this story. So will every child lucky enough to read it.

Mama's Window, Lynn Rubright's touching coming-of-age tale, takes place in a Mississippi Delta swamp. The story concerns Sugar, an eleven-year-old boy. After his mother dies, Sugar moves in with his gruff Uncle Free. At first, Sugar fears the swamp and doesn't like his uncle or the life of a fisherman. But by the end of the novel, Sugar has come to appreciate the swamp and to love his uncle. Rubright's long career as a storyteller and her visits to the Delta help create a setting whose lushness springs from the page. You can almost smell the damp in Rubright's description of the cypress trees whose " little knobby knees jutted out of the water around the splayed trunks of trees," whose "roots reached like wooden tentacles down into the black water." Even more important, Mama's Window inspires readers by showing the value of dreams and the redeeming power of love As a former English teacher, I could see innumerable ways to use this book for discussions and writing assignments. Kids and adults alike will love it