FRESH-GIRL

1. (Download free ebook) Fresh Girl Fresh Girl Jaira Placide ePub | *DOC | audiobook | ebooks | Download PDF #3122362 in Books 2002-01-08 2002-01-08Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.54 x .84 x 5.78l, #File Name: 0385327536224 pages | File size: 65.Mb Jaira Placide : Fresh Girl before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Fresh Girl: 0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great for younger readersBy SandyWas delivered ahead of time. I wish I had known it was for younger readers, but nonetheless it is a good book.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy jayVery good read0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Good read for 12 year old.By Anthony LashleyBought for my 12 year old for summer reading. She loved it. And would recommend for young teenager to read.

2. Mardi was born in New York, but her parents sent her to Haiti to be raised in her grandmothers house while they worked. When a coup dtat means 12-year-old Mardi and her sister must flee, they suddenly arrive in Brooklyn to live with parents they hardly know. Now its two years later. Mardi has adapted to her new life, while savoring sweet memories of her home in Haiti. But she is also haunted by her secret: a soldier raped her when she fled. This ambitious first novel is an insightful story of how family love and support can heal and help us move from world to world. .com "In French my name means Tuesday (Mardi)... because I was born on a Tuesday. Thank God it wasn't a Wednesday because then my name would have been Mercredi. In English it sounds like a pain reliever." When it comes to her name, 14-year-old Mardi can joke. It's just the rest of her life that's not so funny. At school she is accused of having "HBO" (Haitian Body Odor) and at home, there is no privacy in the tiny apartment she shares with many assorted family members. And if she strays slightly from her parents' rigid standards of what it means to be a good Haitian girl, she is harshly accused of being "fresh." But Mardi is keeping a terrible secret from her family about things that happened to her during a military coup those last troubled days in Haiti, a secret that makes her sprinkle her bed with rocks to escape the deep slumber of nightmares. And as that secret begins to surface, Mardi must choose to tell and live, or keep silent, while dying inside. In this challenging debut novel, author Jaira Placide tackles many thorny topics, including sexual harassment, immigrant assimilation, self-mutilation, and rape with a finesse and sensitivity that belies her first-time status. Mardi is a complex character whose joy and pain resonate deeply, mainly due to Placide's ability to maintain Mardi's naive yet cynical voice. With the publication of Fresh Girl, Jaira Placide has released a fresh new voice to the world of teen literature. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer HubertFrom Publishers WeeklyThis ambitious first novel traces the coming of age of a 14-year-old Haitian-American girl, forced to grow up too fast. To some kids at school, Mardi seems quite naeve. She wears outdated clothes, spends more time studying than socializing, and is not allowed to stray very far from her Brooklyn apartment. But Mardi knows more about the dangers of the world than most people her age. Placide plants clues along the way to the secret Mardi harbors: while living in Haiti with her grandmother she experienced a life-changing event during the 1991 coup, too horrific and personal to share with anyone, even her family and closest friends. Now, rejoined with her parents in New York, Mardi wants to forget the past and blend in with her American peers. Yet memories of Haiti continue to surface, causing her to feel bitter and to act "fresh." The author peels away the tough exterior of her protagonist layer by layer to expose a frightened and vulnerable young woman who has ambivalent feelings for her loving, yet over-protective mother, the classmates who taunt her and an attractive, unattainable boy. Although several subplots begin and end abruptly (Mardi's friendship with the wealthy Janille, her uncle's relationship to a boy orphaned in the refugee camps, etc.), the heroine's growing courage to voice her unspeakable truth sustains the novel. Ages 12-up. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From School Library JournalGr 9 Up-Born in New York to immigrant parents, Mardi Desravines returned to Haiti at the age of four to live with her grandmother. Eight years later, her Uncle Perrin's political activities brought violence to the family and forced them to flee. When the story opens Mardi's uncle, who has spent the past two years in a refugee camp in Cuba, is joining the family in their crowded two-bedroom Brooklyn apartment. In one sense, this is the familiar story of an immigrant teenager coping with crowding at home; parents' strict rules and high expectations; difficulties fitting in at school; and the challenge of combining two worlds particularized with rich description of Haitian food, culture, and language. But this is also the story of the aftermath of rape. Two years earlier, on the way to the airport to return to the U.S., Mardi was assaulted by soldiers. Outwardly she is a good student and a hard worker. Inwardly she is terrified. Her many injuries-some self-inflicted and some from bullies at school-are ascribed to her clumsiness. When her uncle is able to win her trust, she reveals her secret. Her family supports her emotionally and gets her both the medical testing and the counseling she needs. The sunlight of the protagonist's childhood memories is skillfully contrasted with the darkly sinister world of her adolescence, and Mardi herself is a convincingly complex and sympathetic character. Teen readers will rejoice in her resiliency and expected recovery.Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DCCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.