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Roots and Wings
Cover of Roots and Wings
Roots and Wings
by Many Ly
Borrow Borrow
GRACE’S GRANDMOTHER HAS died, and she and her mother must travel back to the Cambodian community to give her a proper Cambodian funeral. But Grace wants to use the trip to solve a few mysteries, like who her father was, why her mother and grandmother moved from St. Petersburg to Pennsylvania, where they’re the only Cambodians Grace has ever seen, and what Cambodian culture is really about.
Embraced by her mother’s old friends, Grace feels both at home and lost, fascinated by the traditions she’s never known, but strangely judged by some members of the community. Can she make sense of, and honor, the life of the grandmother she barely knew? And will revelations about the past bring Grace closer to her mother, or push them even further apart?
GRACE’S GRANDMOTHER HAS died, and she and her mother must travel back to the Cambodian community to give her a proper Cambodian funeral. But Grace wants to use the trip to solve a few mysteries, like who her father was, why her mother and grandmother moved from St. Petersburg to Pennsylvania, where they’re the only Cambodians Grace has ever seen, and what Cambodian culture is really about.
Embraced by her mother’s old friends, Grace feels both at home and lost, fascinated by the traditions she’s never known, but strangely judged by some members of the community. Can she make sense of, and honor, the life of the grandmother she barely knew? And will revelations about the past bring Grace closer to her mother, or push them even further apart?
Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
    4.7
  • Lexile:
    720
  • Interest Level:
    MG+
  • Text Difficulty:
    3


Excerpts-
  • From the book I held Grandma’s ashes in a dark wooden urn on my lap. Mom and I were flying her to St. Petersburg, Florida so she could have a Cambodian funeral and not wander around hungry. I didn’t know why an American funeral couldn’t do the same thing, but I trusted that my mother knew what she was doing. Next to me and Grandma, Mom sat with her back to me and her face pressed against the window, lost in the endless light blue sky.
    The airplane rocked, and I held Grandma tightly to my stomach. Earlier I had tried to place her down near my feet.
    “Grace, don’t be disrespectful,” Mom had scolded. So I put Grandma back on my lap and held her like I might have held a baby.
    My grandmother had been only fifty-one years old when she died, so she wasn’t an old lady. I had read in a magazine that being in your fifties or even sixties was like being in your forties a long time ago. Whoever wrote that article did not know my grandmother. She had been small and frail, and she was shorter than I was at fourteen years old. I could have easily put my arms around her waist and picked her up, giving her a shake or two until she started laughing. “Down, Grandchild, down,” she would say as she kicked. But oddly enough, in the urn, she was heavy.
    On the plane many passengers looked down at Grandma and me as they walked past our row, but only eight people didn’t turn away when I looked back. A couple of them turned their eyes toward my grandmother, like they wanted me to tell them about her death. “You didn’t know her,” I would have said if they asked. One lady, in particular, frowned, and her eyes watered. She wanted to say she was “sorry” for my loss, I could tell. But I didn’t want to accept it. She didn’t know me, and I didn’t know her, so I didn’t think her apology would be sincere.
    Mom finally turned away from the window. She had been crying again, her eyes red and swollen, her lips puffy. Considering what her relationship with Grandma had been like when she was alive, I was shocked by how many tears she had shed in the past two weeks. This was the same woman who was always blaming her mother for everything that happened in her life: What, now? Are you going to tell me how to spend my money, too? When will you ever understand me? Isn’t it enough for you that my life is this way!
    My mother was one of those women who spoke perfectly, walked perfectly, and dressed perfectly. Her blouses were always ironed, and the colors she wore fit ideally–never clashing or too matchy matchy. She was what the cosmetic companies called a “natural beauty.” She also had a behind the older boys at school revered. So I’d never understood how “this way” could be all that bad.
    Mom wiped her eyes dry and put on her large sunglasses. She sighed. “Up here, it’s like we’re in a different world. If not for this . . . this plane that holds us back . . . we could, you know, be free and fly.”
    Like birds? I chose not to say anything, though, and soon the gap between her brows wrinkled up in disappointment. It was this kind of moment that reminded me I was not as smart as she was. Or as pretty. Or as perfect.
    “You have it so easy. You’ll never know what it’s like to be caught between two worlds,” she said. She spoke to me like this often, all frustrated and out of gas.
    “Was it like this, you know, when you came to America?”
    Mom returned to the refuge of her window. “No, not at all.” I couldn’t hear her well, and I took the opportunity to move in closer to her, smelling her...
About the Author-
  • Many Ly was born in Cambodia in 1977 and came to the United States in 1981. She grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida, and attended the University of South Florida, graduating with a teaching degree in 1997. Many and her husband, Danith, now live in Pittsburgh, where she is an area coordinator for the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Ly is also the author of Home Is East. Visit her online at http://manyly.com.
Reviews-
  • School Library Journal

    July 1, 2008
    Gr 6-9-Grace, 14, has grown up knowing very little about her family and the traditions of her Cambodian ancestors. Then her grandmother dies, and she and her mother go to Florida for the funeral. Grace has never been to a Buddhist temple, she has never met the people her grandmother was close to, and she has never been told why her mother and grandmother left Florida for Pennsylvania. Grace doesn't even know who her father is. Embraced by her grandmother's old friends, she begins to learn about her heritage and about her grandmother's difficult life. She also discovers secrets about her mother's past and the identity of her father. The author peppers the text with Cambodian terms but doesn't explain them. Readers may feel as lost and confused as Grace is when thrust blindly into Cambodian society. The book is beautifully written, but readers will have to sift through the unfamiliar language to get through to the story. Still, the author allows family secrets to unfold carefully and explores them with sincerity."Julianna M. Helt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA"

    Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist

    March 15, 2008
    When Grandma dies in Pennsylvania, 14-year-old Grace and her mom take the ashes back to the Cambodian immigrant community in St. Petersburg, Florida, for the traditional funeral. Why didher mother and grandmother leave St. Petersburg before Grace was born?Whydidnt they return before this? Grace grabs the chance to explore her roots and search for her father. The cultural detail nearly overwhelms the story (along with the funeral, theres a traditional wedding going on with multiple rehearsals and rituals). But, as in Lys first novel, Home is East (2005), the immigrant experience is part of the family drama, which includesa look at whatGrandmaescaped from in Cambodia. More than politics, thenovel is about family secrets, and Graces search for her father is, of course, the elemental search for herself. As she goes forward in the story, she discovers shame, spite, hurt, anger, and love across generationsand, finally, forgiveness and understanding.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

  • The Horn Book

    July 1, 2008
    Grace and her mother bring Grace's grandmother's ashes home to the large Cambodian American community in St. Petersburg, Florida, for a traditional funeral. Grace's first real immersion into Cambodian culture brings up questions about the past--her own, her mother's, and her grandmother's. Replete with Cambodian historical and religious details, this thoughtful coming-of-age story is grounded in family and tradition.

    (Copyright 2008 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

  • The Bulletin "Readers looking for a nuanced and sympathetic exploration of secondculture life or a family struggling for rebalance will find a home here."
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    Random House Children's Books
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