Reviews for The Red Rose Box

The average rating for The Red Rose Box based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-11 00:00:00 Martin Sinclair In 1958 Sulphur Springs, Louisiana Leah Jean Hooper dreams of being a teacher but everyone she knows thinks she's destined to be a cotton picker (the author uses the word "pickaninny"). When Leah's mysterious Aunt Olivia in the far off Los Angeles, California sends a red rose traveling box for Leah's 10th birthday filled with luxurious garments, nail polish, lipstick and bath scent, Leah believes anything is possible. Her little sister Ruth also receives a traveling case for her 9th birthday along with an invitation for the girls and their family to visit Aunt Olivia in LA. California is practically another planet away and a completely different world for Leah. LA is freedom. Freedom from harassment by white folks, freedom to drink out of any water fountain, freedom from the segregation she's known her whole life. It also means freedom to wear new clothes or luxuriate in a bubble bath just because. Life in Sulphur Springs will never be the same. Then the unthinkable happens and tragedy strikes Leah's hometown and her life changes forever. Suddenly LA doesn't feel like freedom anymore. It feels stifling and Leah longs to feel the dirt under her feet once again or lapse into the colloquial speech patterns of rural Louisiana without anyone judging her. Caught between two world, this is a young woman's coming of age during the Jim Crow era. This book is outstanding for a debut novel. It's not for young readers, at least not without their parents reading it first. The author doesn't shy away from using racial language including THE word. Her characters speak in dialect and the story depicts the experience of two African-American girls growing up in the Jim Crow south. The story is told from Leah's point-of-view which is a bit stream of conscious at times. Brown Vs. Board, the groundbreak Supreme Court ruling on school segregation is mentioned but doesn't affect the main characters. The voices of the characters feel very authentic. I liked the way they spoke in dialect though it took me a little while to get into it. The descriptions of dirt roads and cotton fields feel so real and it's easy to imagine Leah and Ruth's life there. Los Angeles is described quite so lovingly. It's big, it's chaotic in places, there's a lot to do, many wealthy people and lots of rules. There's a minor love story that I could do without. I didn't really care for Leah or Ruth. I did root for Leah to become a teacher like she has always dreamed. I can't imagine being so beaten down as so to tell my peer she won't accomplish her dreams and to stop trying to "get above herself." This mindset was shocking and made me want to root for Leah even more. Leah is a girl on the verge of womanhood and she doesn't really know who she is yet. I admire how she sticks to her dream no matter what. I hope she becomes a teacher and returns to Sulphur Springs to inspire the next generation the way her teacher inspired her. I did not like Ruth. Her sassy mouth would have gotten her in big trouble some day. She has a fresh comment for everything but her disposition is sunny. I liked the bond the two sisters share. The two girls have more in common with Mrs. Pittman, Aunt Olivia's maid, than with their own Aunt. Olivia is glamorous, modern and wealthy. She doesn't really understand young girls though she has a kind heart. If I were Mama I would have taken away the contents of Leah's new suitcase. That was too precocious of a gift for a 10 year old child. Olivia should have sent those things to her sister and her mother, not her nieces. Olivia is very generous though and tries hard so I liked her. Her husband is kind too and knows what it's like to have a dream of lifting oneself above poverty. Mrs. Pittman can sass right back to Ruth and shut the girl down without resorting to discipline. They speak the same language and Mrs. Pittman is sympathetic and understanding of the girls' feelings. I rated this 4 stars because I think the ending is too rushed. This book is a must-add to school libraries across the country.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-02-04 00:00:00 Richard Vinal The book, The Red Rose Box by Brenda Woods. The book was about these two sisters named Leah and Ruth Hopper. They lived in Sulphur, Louisiana. One day for Leah's birthday, her aunt Olivia who lives in Los Angeles, gave Leah A red rose box. It wasn't normal to see that beautiful of a gift because Leah and her family lived in the south where there was the Jim Crow laws. After she received the box things changed and Leah's Life would never be the same. Something tragic happened so Leah and Ruth had to live with their aunt Olivia in California. The sisters didn't know if they would ever fit in and that California will ever feel like home. I really liked this book because it went back in time where there wasn't freedom for certain colors and I wasn't alive to ever connect or feel the way people felt back then. One quote that stood out to me in the book was, " Someone splashed water on me and I looked around at the faces of colored boys and girls who had probably never tasted possum meat, whose fingertips had never been bloodied by the cotton plant, who had never been spit at or told to go to the back door, who were accustomed to looking white people in the eye, and I wished that Ruth was there. Ruth understood. More than these boys and girls ever could." It stood out to me because Leah felt alone because that's when she moved with her aunt and she didn't think anyone understood her. I really liked this book and I would highly recommend this book to anyone.