Songs of Faith

Johnson, Angela. 1998. SONGS OF FAITH. New York: Orchard Books. ISBN-10: 0531300234

PLOT SUMMARY
Set in the small town of Harvey Ohio, the year is 1976 and as the country is preparing for the bicentennial. While everyone else is ready to celebrate thirteen year old Doreen and her little brother Robert are trying to cope with the divorce of their parents. Not only has their father moved to Chicago their mother has gone back to school and is to busy to notice that her children are suffering. When Robert stops talking Doreen does not think things can not get any worse. She is proven wrong when her best friend moves away and her brother goes to live with their father. However, Doreen learns that faith in love can help her through anything.


CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Johnson has done an excellent job describing life of a divorced family living in a small town. Her description of the smelly river full of trash, and the closed down mill helps to set the scene for the reader. One can imagine a town that was once a thriving place but because of business closers has become a town of poverty and divorced women.
The characters in the story are likable and are like any normal child of the 1970’s. If it were not for the cover photo the reader may not realize that the characters are African-American. Johnson first person account uses dialect that would be common in many small towns. The central story of divorce is also a common theme in young adult literature and could be related to any ethnic group. One of the few examples of cultural markers in the story is the name that the children call their mother “Mama Dot”. Another example would be the church that their neighbor Miss. Mary attends.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Publishers Weekly
In Johnson's (Humming Whispers) absorbing character study, the country prepares the bicentennial celebration of Independence Day while 13-year-old Doreen and her younger brother Robert start a new chapter in their lives without their father. The finalization of their parents' divorce sharpens Doreen's sense that nearly everyone else is moving forward while she "stays put" in Harvey, Ohio, a place "far out of everything and everybody." With the closing of the steel mill, the town's population is shifting ("Mama Dot says Harvey's becoming a place full of just-divorced women and their kids").

School Library Journal
A deftly detailed novel set in 1976. Johnson uses the particulars of the months after Doreen and Robert's father moves to Chicago and Doreen's best friend moves away to illuminate the universal experience of coping with loss. At the same time, a new girl, Jolette, moves into the neighborhood with her stepmother and too-quiet younger brothers. The sad setting, a neighborhood just outside the projects in a decaying Ohio town where the mills are closed and the trash-filled river smells, mirrors the depression of the characters: troubled children, recently divorced women, and men emotionally scarred from their service in Vietnam.

Reviews accessed at:
http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Faith-Angela-Johnson/dp/0531300234

CONNECTIONS
Additional books for students on divorce.
Dear Mr. Henshaw ISBN-10: 0380709589
How Tia Lola Came to (Visit) Stay ISBN-10: 0375902155