Chill Wind Contributor(s): McDonald, Janet (Author) |
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ISBN: 0374411832 ISBN-13: 9780374411831 Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL OUR PRICE: $12.59 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2006 Annotation: A young, single mother of two small children, Aisha Ingram's idea of the good life doesn't include going to school or worrying about the future. Then she receives a welfare termination notice. Without those benefits, things don't look good. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Young Adult Fiction | People & Places - United States - African American - Young Adult Fiction | Girls & Women - Young Adult Fiction | Social Themes - Homelessness & Poverty |
Dewey: FIC |
Lexile Measure: 820 |
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.5" W x 8.4" (0.40 lbs) 144 pages |
Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Geographic Orientation - New York - Locality - New York, N.Y. - Cultural Region - Mid-Atlantic - Cultural Region - Northeast U.S. |
Accelerated Reader Info |
Quiz #: 67346 Reading Level: 5.2 Interest Level: Upper Grades Point Value: 4.0 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: A tough and funny project girl manages to make that chill wind blow away The good life, according to Aisha Ingram, is easy. It's hanging with friends, dancing, listening to music, whatever . . . but it doesn't include worrying about the future. Chilling out is her mantra until she receives a sixty-day termination-of-welfare-benefits notice. Without her monthly food stamps and assistance checks and with no help from the father of her two children, Aisha's life threatens to become a little too chilly. The clock is ticking and she doesn't have many options, but one thing she knows for sure: workfare is not for her. There's no way she's going to scrub subway cars or sweep city sidewalks. Aisha tries to come up with other ways to get money, but things don't look good. Soon another notice comes: only thirty days left. Then she sees an ad on TV for BIGMODELS, and she figures she might as well check out the agency. After all, she is pretty enough. But just when it looks like Aisha's problems might be solved, things grow crazy again. In Aisha, Janet McDonald has created a larger-than-life heroine who finds and succeeds at what is right for her. Chill Wind is the winner of the 2003 Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe New Talent Award. |
Contributor Bio(s): McDonald, Janet: - I was born after midnight during a thunderstorm. The taxi speeding my mother to the hospital broke down on a Brooklyn street, and another had to be hailed. Meanwhile, I tried to kick my way out of the dark, dank crawl space of her stomach, undoubtedly in a prenatal panic. As if that weren't bad enough, once I get here I find that I've been given a humiliatingly weird middle name -- Arneda -- and that I am going to grow up not in the spacious, airy home I dreamed about in the womb but in a small apartment in the projects that I will eventually share with four brothers, two sisters, and two parents. Can we say, Bummed Out at an Early Age?! What do you do when your life is set up to be as rough as possible? You just have to focus on the good parts. Like the fact that your parents are great cooks. And your older brother, the jock, lets you hang out with him and play sports. And your little brother is really cool and your best friend. And reading takes you completely out of your dreary world and into excitement, adventure, and fun. I got out of the projects and into books, which is where I've remained. Wouldn't you? Books took me to college, then to law school, then to journalism school . . . People in my neighborhood started calling me a professional student. And then books took me over completely and I began writing my own. Along the way I worked as a proofreader in a law firm (the only job I ever liked), a paralegal in a law firm (the first job I ever hated), and a lawyer in a law firm (the job that lets me travel the world). I moved from Brooklyn to Seattle and then to Paris, France. My life still occasionally seems like a bad joke, but as a writer I can at least live other people's lives while I wait out the storm of my own. Janet McDonald (1953-2007) is the author of the adult memoir Project Girl. She is the author of three books set in the Brooklyn projects: Chill Wind, for which she received the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent; Spellbound, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; and Twists and Turns, an ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and lived in Paris, France. |