Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Starred Review Like Mark Bixler's adult book The Lost Boys of Sudan (2005), this powerful novel tells today's refugee story from a young viewpoint, but here the Sudanese teen is a girl. In free-verse poems, Viola, 16, remembers being driven from home in the brutal civil war, then the long, barefoot trek to Khartoum and Cairo, escaping land mines and suffering hunger along the way, until at last she and her mother get refugee status, board a plane, and join her uncle in Portland, Maine's Sudanese community. Never exploitative, Viola's narrative will grip readers with its harsh truths: the shame of her rape in Sudan and the loss of her "bride wealth"; the heartbreak when her little brother dies during their escape; her wrenching separation from her grandmother. The contemporary drama in Maine is also moving and immediate. At 17, Viola is thrilled to go to school, and she makes friends, even a boyfriend who teaches her to drive: but can he get over her rape? Always there is her mother, enraged by the new ways. An essential addition to the growing list of strong immigrant stories for youth.

School Library Journal Starred Review (Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Gr 9 Up- The Good Braider follows Viola on a journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the folds of a Sudanese community in Maine. Viola's story, told in free verse, is difficult to read without a constant lurking sense of both dread and hope. In the opening scene she gazes at the curve of the back of a boy walking the street in front of her, only to view his senseless execution moments later. This tension never completely dissipates, though it takes on different forms throughout her story; by the end it is replaced not by the fear of execution or of the lecherous soldier who forces her to trade herself for her family's safety, but by the tension of walking the line between her mother's cultural expectations and the realities of her new country. Yet while Farish so lyrically and poignantly captures Viola's wrenching experience leaving her home, navigating the waiting game of refugee life, and acculturating into the United States, she's equally successful in teasing out sweet moments of friendship and universal teenage experiences. Viola's memorable, affecting voice will go far to help students step outside of their own experience and walk a mile in another's shoes.— Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Viola and her family, having escaped their bleak, war-torn Sudanese village, finally settle in 2002 amidst a large Sudanese community in Portland, Maine. The free-form verse and repetitive symbolism tie this portion of Viola's life, tenuously, to her slowly receding connections to Sudan. Farish succeeds when exploring the clashes between African and American culture, yet Viola's attachment to Africa remains strong through the powerful imagery.