Green Angel

Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
Published by Scholastic Press in 2003
116 pages
Warning: This novel deals with death, sadness, grief and it is gloomy. There is some mild language and some disturbing disastrous events.
Genre: Death, Family

This novel, at times, reminded me of Overboard by Elizabeth Fama. Both books involve young girls learning survival skills, and falling prey to the selfish tendencies that may come with the survival mode situations.

After the sudden and tragic death of her family, Green hopes for their return. Unfortunately, they do not return. Green quickly transforms into Ash. She must learn to fight off looters, search for food and learn to help others. Looking past old biases and preconceived notions of various people from her past, Ash learns to help others beside herself survive. The grieving process is well documented. Ash, like all of us, copes with the death of her family in her own unique way. Will she remain Ash for the rest of her life, buried in the ash and wreckage of disaster, or return to the Green girl who once cared and protected her garden?

This book is wonderful! I have never experienced the pain of a loved one dying, so I was enlightened to the grieving process and how people grieve about death differently. This book is also interesting, because it can be interpreted as the grieving process of a young girl after the September 11th terrorist attacks in NYC in 2001. While the book does not say this explicitly, it could be interpreted this way.