My Louisiana Sky
By Kimberly Willis Holt
In My Louisiana Sky, award-winning author Kimberly Willis Holt, stirs emotions and creates compassion in her readers to help prevent prejudice in the young reader and to tear away the shackles of prejudice and bigotry in the mature reader surrounding issues of differences.
Willis Holt sets the novel in Saitter, Louisiana, and in Baton Rouge, in the 1950's. Through the strong and believable characters -- Granny Jewel Ramsey and her two daughters, Corrina Ramsey Parker and Dorie Kay Ramsey ("Doreen"), her granddaughter Tiger Ann Parker, and her son-in-law Lonnie Parker -- the author creates a substantial and memorable framework. Through characters such as Tiger's best buddy, Jesse Wade Thompson, who gives Tiger her first kiss, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, Otis, and Magnolia, Dorie Kay's cook, Willis Holt stabilizes that framework. She floods light over haughty characters, such as Abby Lynn, Shorty Calhoun, and Miz Eula, the gossip, to reflect how interminably they are entrenched in their own fears and their own shortcomings. Through Lonnie's extreme care and loving attention to nurseryman Thompson's prize-winning "Louisiana Ladies" camellias, the reader can extrapolate that, given the opportunity, everyone can contribute in his or her own special way.
In a touching and page-turning plot, she also deals sensitively with the issue of death. Granny's unexpected death and, especially, Corrina's, Aunt Dorie Kay's, Lonnie's, and Tiger's reaction to it, and even the comparison of the reaction of Darlie Reeves' reaction to her own mother's death, clearly point to the truth of Granny Ramsey's words, "People handle death in different ways. Sometimes they act strange on the outside, but inside it's the same for everyone. Their hearts are breaking" (p. 96).
Aunt Dorie Kay invites Tiger, who will be referred to as "Ann," if she accepts "Doreen's" offer to live with her in Baton Rouge; and Ann prepares to leave Corrina and Lonnie. Tiger wants to get away from people like Abby Lynn, who shun her for having parents who are "slow." Tiger wants to free herself from the struggles between the remnants of her love for her parents from her early childhood and her sometimes now poignant feelings of shame and guilt. She wants to accept Aunt Dorie Kay's invitation, and she even marks her hope for a new beginning with her new bobbed hairstyle. Magnolia's words -- "Take care of you? You a big girl. When I's your age my momma laid down and died. The world done wore her out. I had five younger brothers and sisters to take care of and I done it. Your family needs you" (p. 159) -- help Tiger to begin to find her way back to her family.
In a heart rending climax, the reader finds the words, "We just kept running and when we met, we clung to each other as tight and sturdy as those pines. And through the howling of that old wind, I heard Granny's voice whisper to me: Your momma's love is simple. It flows from her like a quick, easy river. And for the first time in a long time I felt safe in my momma's arms" (p. 188). Finally, safe with her parents, Tiger makes her feelings definite in her words, "A warmth swept over me -- mightier than any devil's wind could blow. And despite all the pulled up trees and broken branches on the ground, I felt my heart clear. I was home, and it was exactly where I wanted to be" (p. 192).
Linda Davis Kyle, Reviewer
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