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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Between an alcoholic mother and two absent fathers, Paris and her brother Malcolm have seen their share of foster homes, and none of them have been good. So Paris is reluctant to trust the Lincolns, no matter how nice they seem. She’s also not happy that she and Malcolm have been separated. But the Lincolns turn out to be far different from Paris’s other foster parents. They seem to genuinely want her with them. Their two young sons treat her like an older sister, and even their other foster daughter, a teenager, is welcoming if not warm. At school Paris makes her first good friend, and despite her wariness, Paris has to admit that things are looking up. Paris’s mother is even trying to pull her life together, a fact with unexpected consequences for Paris in Nikki Grimes’s story about a biracial (African American/white) girl whose newfound security leads to the discovery of strengths she never knew she had. (Ages 10–13)

CCBC Choices 2007 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007. Used with permission.

From AudioFile Magazine

For Paris, the concept of home is not a simple one. Does it involve her birth mother, Viola, and her brother, Malcolm? Does it include her grandmother, who harbors the siblings and then returns them to the foster care network? Does it include her foster family, the Lincolns? Is home a place, or does it abide within a person? Paris's anguish as she endures pitch-black bedrooms and unresolved memories is palpable. Myra Taylor's character palette is rich. Mrs. Lincoln sounds matter-of-fact; the psychologist, condescending; brother Malcolm, fierce in his protection of Paris; stepbrothers, sympathetic; and new friend Ashley, solicitous. Taylor differentiates the various components of Paris's personality in a way that emphasizes the complexity of this young girl's life. A.R. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine