Money Hungry

Sharon G. Flake

ISBN 10: 1435244605 ISBN 13: 9781435244603

Publisher: Paw Prints 2008-04-18, 2008

Synopsis

Thirteen-year-old Raspberry Hill is always scheming about ways to make money. She's starved for the green stuff, and will do just about anything legal to get it-wash cars, sell rotten candy, skip lunch, and clean houses. She is obsessed with making money, having money, smelling money, and touching money. Raspberry is determined that she and her momma will never be homeless again. When they are approved for a Section 8 move to a nice house in Pecan Landings, Raspberry thinks things are looking up. But after their apartment in the projects is robbed, and protest by the rich folks in Pecan Landings force them out of their new house, Raspberry must do everything in her power to keep her world from crumbling.

About this title

About the Author:

Sharon G. Flake won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award for her first novel The Skin I'm In and is a two-time Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book winner. Beloved by children and adults, critics and booksellers, librarians and teachers, she is the author of a middle-grade novel and five books for young adults that have sold more than half a million copies. The mother of a college-age daughter, Flake writes full-time from her home in Pittsburgh.
To learn more about Ms. Flake, please visit her at www.sharongflake.com.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Gr. 7-10. "If you got money, people can't take stuff from you--not your house, or your ride, not your family. They can't do nothing much to you, if you got a bankroll backing you up." Thirteen-year-old Raspberry Hill knows what it's like not to have security. After leaving her drug-addicted father, Raspberry and her mother lived on friends' couches and on the street before they landed in the projects. Now, while Raspberry's mom works two jobs and goes to school, Raspberry obsessively does anything she can to grow that bankroll to back her up; she sells pencils and old candy; cleans houses for the elderly; and washes cars at stoplights. Her three close friends both support her and mock her. There's Mia, who fights against her Korean and African American parents, wanting to identify herself only as black; Ja'nae, who lives with loving grandparents but yearns for her flaky, estranged mother; and Zora, whose divorced physician father, Dr. Mitchell, seems to be romancing Raspberry's mother, which upsets both girls. The razor-sharp dialogue and unerring details evoke characters, rooms, and neighborhoods with economy and precision, creating a story that's immediate, vivid, and unsensationalized. Without synthetic drama or stereotypes, Flake shows poverty and how it touches everyone, whether it's the actual absence of money or the fear of losing it. A few of the characters are less developed; Dr. Mitchell in particular is vague and a little too perfect. But Flake creates scenes of heart-stopping tenderness and tension between Raspberry and her friends and especially with her mother, as they struggle to leave the projects, suffering breakdowns and break-ins along the way, finally moving into a house of their own. Whatever teens' own familial insecurities may be, they will read something of their own lives in this title from the author of The Skin I'm In (1998). Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Paw Prints 2008-04-18
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1435244605
• ISBN 13: 9781435244603
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 188