Today is the teacher’s last day. It’s all over except for the packing – and there will be a lot of that today. I might write more about that another time. Over the weekend, I read or finished the books we will be discussing at book club tonight. One of those was With the Fire On High by Elizabeth Acevedo.
Publisher’s Summary: Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.
Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
Like most people, I loved The Poet X. When I first learned this book was all prose, I was a little concerned. Before my library hold came through, I heard Elizabeth Acevedo interviewed on NPR and she said that she chose prose for this book because Emoni wasn’t a poet like Xiomara. This might be a novel in prose, but there are places where that prose is pure poetry.
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