School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 8 Up-- Haiti is the setting for this novel of two young people whose growth toward matu rity mirrors the same process taking place in their volatile country. Based on real incidents and people, it is the fascinating story of fiction al Djo, one of Aristide's boys, street urchins whom the priest gathered together to give an opportunity for a different life and a chance at an education. Jeremie is a young woman edu cated at a convent school, the only way out of the slums into which she was born. They meet at Djo's hospital bedside where he is near death from a beating at the hands of the Tonton Ma coute, the deposed Duvalier's private army of thugs; she is responsible for getting Djo's story on tape. While he is in a coma, she writes her own story. Both of their accounts are full of the grim realities of life in modern Haiti, complete with the sense of hopefulness and helplessness that must fill a country in which politics are a deadly game. Dialect is used throughout, but it is readable, lyrical, and adds authenticity to the narrative. Factual material is integrated ex tremely well; no background knowledge is needed to become caught up in the drama of the many in this embattled land as related through the eyes of two compelling characters. An excellent first effort. --Kathryn Havris, Mesa Pub . Lib . , AZ

Kirkus Reviews

Incidents in Haiti's turbulent recent history are seen through the eyes of two Port-au-Prince teenagers in a poignant (doubly so, considering subsequent events) first novel. Djo and Jeremie are both from the slums. Djo ``almost went to school,'' spent years living with and helping the revolutionary priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and now lies in a clinic, badly injured after a firebombing. Jeremie, an honor student, has been moved to sit at Djo's bedside, listen to his story, and later, when he falls into a coma, tell hers. Though the two have very different personalities—cheerful Djo sees the world as a simple place; Jeremie finds it full of shadows and uncertainty—they've both seen grinding poverty, survived bloody Macoute attacks, and fervently support the newly elected Aristide; both hope for a brighter future. In voodoo lore, a pinch of salt can give a zombie self-awareness and escape; here, Temple offers such a taste while celebrating the revolutionary movement that has given the Haitian people a taste of escape from oppression. (Fiction. 12+)"

ALA Booklist (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 1992)

A gripping first novel is simply told in the voices of two Haitian teenagers who find political commitment and love. Real events of the late 1980s are woven into the story, and the priest-leader Aristide appears as a quiet, charismatic figure who calls for democratic change. Djo is in the hospital after a terrorist firebombing that killed his friends. Jeremie is a convent girl who's been sent by Aristide to record Djo's story. Haltingly, Djo tells her of his early life on the streets as a shoe-shine boy and of the hope he found in Aristide's boys' shelter. Then he remembers how he was kidnapped and spent three years as an indentured laborer in the sugarcane fields of the neighboring Dominican Republic, and how he escaped. For a time in the hospital, Djo hovers near death, and at his bedside, Jeremie writes her story for him, though her educated voice doesn't have the vital Creole idiom of Djo's longer, lyrical narrative. The main characters are idealized, but their grim circumstances are not. We feel their struggle to reach beyond themselves. The combination of dramatic action, romantic interest, and vivid storytelling will grab even the most apolitical teens. The ending, when Djo remembers the firebombing of the boys' shelter, is like a cry. The title is from a Haitian story: everyone needs a taste of salt; otherwise, you can become a zombie, with neither insight nor will. (Reviewed Aug. 1992)

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 1992)

Jeremie, a student from the convent, records seventeen-year-old Djo's story and tells her own as she cares for him in the hospital after he has been beaten in an unprovoked attack. Temple recounts their coming-of-age in the midst of the cruel injustices that wracked the poverty-stricken nation of Haiti before Jean-Bertrand Aristide's rise to power in 1991. The book is a deeply felt, provocative statement of human courage.