Book Blurb:
What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris: After her father dies of an overdose and the debts incurred from his addiction cause the loss of the family home in Detroit, almost-eleven-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB) and her teenage sister, Nia, are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing.
Over the course of a single, sweltering summer, KB attempts to get her bearings in a world that has turned upside down–a father who is labeled a fiend; a mother whose smile no longer reaches her eyes; a sister, once her best friend, who has crossed the threshold of adolescence and suddenly wants nothing to do with her; a grandfather who is grumpy and silent; the white kids across the street who are friendly, but only sometimes. And all of them are keeping secrets. Pinballing between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, KB is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. As she examines the jagged pieces of her recently shattered world, she learns that while some truths cut deep, a new life–and a new KB–can be built from the shards.
Capturing all the vulnerability, perceptiveness, and inquisitiveness of a young Black girl on the cusp of puberty, Harris’s prose perfectly inhabits that hazy space between childhood and adolescence, where everything that was once familiar develops a veneer of strangeness when seen through newer, older eyes. Through KB’s disillusionment and subsequent discovery of her own power, What the Fireflies Knew poignantly reveals that heartbreaking but necessary component of growing up–the realization that loved ones can be flawed, sometimes significantly so, and that the perfect family we all dream of looks different up close.
My Review: 4 stars
What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris was a remarkable work of fiction that sucked the reader in from the first page as we meet this young, inquisitive character, KB – short for Kenyatta Bernice. I listened to this amazing audio narration performed by Zenzi Williams, whose name you may recognize from her work as an actor. Personally, I made an error in choosing to listen to this while reading Our Little World. Although these books are totally different in scope, both books feature sisters on the cusp of growing apart and both have boy/girl siblings that live across the street. It took my brain a while to manage and differentiate those similarities.
This story explores family and all its constructs and possibilities. KB and Nia are sent to live with their grandfather who hasn’t raised a child in decades, which is further complicated by his own daughter’s estrangement. All KB knows is that her mom is resting, her dad is something called a fiend and she has a complicated relationship with the white kids on her street. KB was wonderful and precocious character. She made me smile when she used lessons from Anne of Green Gables to help navigate her new life in Lansing.
Although this book covers some tough subjects such as racial prejudice, abuse, addiction and grief, it also spotlights family communication, connection, redemption and growth.
I look forward to reading more from this author.
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