February 2015 Host:  Karen

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

This is the story of 10-year old Rachel whose mother is Danish and father is an African American GI.  After the family moves to America, tragedy strikes and Rachel moves in with her paternal grandmother.  Rachel feels alienated from her family and is unable to put herself into a black or white category.  She feels she does not fit in with the white girls because of her dark skin and does not fit in with the black girls because of her blue eyes and over achiever status.  She also struggles with the memories of the tragedy that had befallen her family and misses the Danish-American culture in which she was raised. The second half of the novel covers the nuances of Rachel’s development, her conflicts with her judgmental but well-meaning grandmother, and her relationship with a liberal white college boy.  From each of the main characters, we get an alternating view of Rachel’s past through a climactic build until the end, where we learn the most profound incident of Rachel’s life.  The novel explores the complexities of racial relationships and identities and the reader is compelled to read to the end to understand the mystery of the horrific tragedy that befell Rachel.