Disappointed

BeforeI started Ninth Ward, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, I had high hopes.  It is a Coretta Scott King Award honor book, it is about hurricane Katrina, and I was told the main character could see dead people.  Sounds compelling and exciting.....unfortunately, it was neither.

It is about twelve-year-old Lanesha, who has been raised by Mama Ya-Ya in New Orlean's Ninth Ward.    Mama Ya-Ya is a local healer, but not her birth mother .  Lanesha's mother died giving birth to her.  In fact, that is one of the dead people she sees....her mother, on the birthing bed.  What should be creepy, soon became a bit dreary.  Because Lanesha was born with a cowl covering her, she has always been held as different.  The part of the story that deals with her isolation and response to it is the one uplifting part of this book.  Unfortunately, even riding out Katrina in one of the worst-hit parts of New Orleans is sort of anti-climatic.  

I can't say I hated this book.  It was well-written, and I liked Mama Ya-Ya and Lanesha, it just was a bit dull.....disappointing.