Rainbow Jordan

Rating:
Summary: Better than her first book, I think.
Review: Alice Childress's second novel for children, and written in the same sort of Harlemese as A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich, this is the story of fourteen-year-old Rainbow Jordan. Her single mother, Kathie, is a go-go dancer and flighty. Every couple of weeks she'll take off on a gig and leave Rainbow alone in their apartment. Usually when this happens Rainbow goes to say with Miss Josie, her foster mother, who cares a lot about Rainbow but is preoccupied with the breakup of her twenty-year marriage. On the street Rainbow's got a girlfriend, Beryl, who earns spending money with casual prostitution, and a boyfriend, Eljay, who keeps pressuring her to go all the way.

The story is told from three points of view: Kathie, Rainbow, and Miss Josie. Kathie does love her daughter in her own way, but as Rainbow says, "her way don't weigh much". A good example of this is when Kathie went out and bought Rainbow some new, pretty clothes. But she had to use the babysitter money to pay for them, and because of this she had to leave Rainbow, then five years old, alone in the house for several hours. Miss Josie on the other hand cares about Rainbow in a much more mature way. Rainbow thinks little of either of them.

I thought A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich was good, but I think I liked Rainbow Jordan better. The situations in the book -- irresponsible parents, boyfriends that keep nagging you to have sex with them, men that abandon their families -- are real and just as applicable today as they were back in 1982 when the book was written.

Rating:
Summary: Rainbow Jordan by Alice Childress
Review: This book is very good for teens to read. This will allow them to see that maybe they are not alone in their journey also it will allow other children who are blessed to have good parents to see how it could be. I'd recommend this book to be read by everyone.