Author Study: Angela Johnson

Title: Looking for Red

Author: Angela Johnson

Illustrator: none

Novel for ages (approximately) 10 and up

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary:

This book is about a girl named Mike, short for Michaela, whose brother has recently passed away due to a tragic accident. It follows her actions, thoughts, and feelings following her brother's passing.

Opinion:

This book was very interesting, it was a style of writing I had never been exposed to before and it took me a few pages to get used to it. Angela Johnson writes almost poetically, although I’m not sure I would call it poetry. It is written as if you were in Mike’s head, hearing her every thought and feeling her every feeling. When Mike talked, or thought rather, about her loss I felt it and connected with her. It that way it is very good writing. The only reason I didn't rate it 5/5 is simply because I prefer knowing where a story is going and feeling out its plot. This book really didn’t have a plot and didn’t really flow linearly. One chapter would be about the school day and the next would be a dream. Sometimes they connected, sometimes they didn’t. Was it a good book? Yes, most definitely, as I said before it was very easy to connect and feel what Johnson wanted the reader to feel, however for my own personal reading I prefer a more typical story line.

As far as classroom curriculum goes, although I’m not sure how I would use it I see no reason not to. It could be part of a genre study or author study to expose students to different types of writing as well as sit on my classroom library shelf for curious readers. It could fit into an ocean theme, an African-American author theme, a siblings theme, or an East coast theme. I may suggest it to a student (depending upon the circumstances) who has had a loss similar to Mike’s to show that they are not alone or that their feelings are normal or that there is more than one way to deal with loss.