Clover

This is a beautiful, soft, sad, and sweet story told by Clover Lee Hill, a ten-year-old black girl living in South Carolina. It reads almost like a diary. Clover's mom was no longer alive. Her dad, Gaten Hill, dies suddenly in an automobile accident just hours after marrying Sara Kate, a white woman. That leaves Clover in the care of a stepmother she hardly knows.

In the first half of the novel, we meet Gaten’s extended family and see their reaction to his dating a white woman. Most of the family at first seems skeptical. Later most remain unhappy with his choice to marry Sara Kate, but they were not downright hateful so this novel at least starts out with a glimmer of hope and on an upbeat note. Gaten’s sister Everleen did tell show more Clover, “People need to be accepted and judged by the kind of person they are inside, not on the basis of the color of their skin.”

As the novel progresses, we see family and friends interact and bonds tighten. It's really lovely how this happens and is reflected in Clover's words. Of all of the qualities of this novel, I think its gentleness is what moves me the most. show less

I have conflicting thoughts about this young adult fiction novel. I like the fact that it deals with race relations - in the family and community in the 1980's - and from the innocent eyes of a ten-year-old child. Yet, Clover, the child-narrator, has been through so much in her young life that her emotions do not adequately reflect her recent traumas. Intellectually her pain is stated, but emotionally, that deep raw ache such an age and experience would normally elicit, is not palpable.

Likewise, Sander's characters, with the exception of Everleen, lack dimension. Ironically, they have colorful backgrounds, yet their expression, formed by the author's writing style, lacks depth. The author may have tried to convey that somewhat murky show more experience we interpret from the eyes of a child, but the intensity of this experience falls short.

Sanders novel also struggles with fluency. Weaving back and forth through time is not a problematic technique. However, Saunders method is choppy. It takes away from the novel's sense of continuity, feeling more like interruptions than reflections.

Now comes the irony. Despite all of the above, Sander's has written a sweet and charming book. Maybe it is because of Clover 's innocent soliloquies. The reader cannot help but love her and feel deeply for her. Maybe it is the circumstances. As an adult you want to protect her and hope, with the love of her family (despite their contradictions), she will turn out all right.

Overall, Dori Sanders has written a good book and story line. Her characters are interesting; they are simply not developed as much as they could have been considering the intensity of the subject matter. It is unfortunate, improvement of these qualities would have resulted in an exceptional work of literary fiction. show less

Drawing from the author’s childhood experiences, she writes a simple, but touching, book about a young African American girl who struggles to accept the loss of her father when he dies in an accident within hours of being married. Clover needs to overcome her grief and she does this with the help of her new white stepmother. . A recurring theme throughout the book is learning to accept differences, both of race and socio-economic status. I really enjoyed the author's notes at the end of the book, talking about her life growing up on one of the oldest African American owned peach farms in South Carolina.

A young black girl in South Carolina loses her father to a car accident the very day he marries a white woman. Clover is left in the care of her new stepmother, Sara Kate, and must come to terms with the differences between them and she insightfully discerns Sara Kate’s efforts to fit into Clover’s family and community.
Clover has a child’s sensibility and a way of viewing the world that is dependent upon how much is inadvertently revealed to her when adults are ignorant of her presence. This is very realistic and well done. She tells her tale in seemingly unrelated vignettes which move back and forth through time, giving the reader a more and more complete picture of her life and family.
Her perspective is interesting and show more worthwhile, particularly if one is dissimilar from her and unfamiliar with her world. Recommended for the slice of life that is revealed to the curious reader. show less

There's a lot to admire about Sanders' writing, but I can't help being a bit underwhelmed by the book itself here. As slice-of-life fiction goes, the scenes are wonderfully written, and the characters brought to life on every page without fail. At the same time, while the ten-year-old Clover makes for an entertaining protagonist and narrator at many points, she's also one of the problems with the work as a whole, as there are so often moments when her thoughts/words so clearly feel like the author's own thoughts/words stepping in to shape the story vs those that would come from a child. Similarly, there's such focus on the girl's summer and memories, and on making her the strong young protagonist she's meant to be, there's a certain show more lack of emotion which makes the book somewhat one-note even when it's tackling its most serious territory.

So, I suppose in the end I have mixed feelings. I admire the author's writing, but the story as a whole feels like it's somewhat lackluster, more built of short stories pulled together into a novel than a fully developed story that's got all it needs to be. I feel like I'd love to read a short story collection from the author, but I'm not sure I'd pick up another novel from her. show less

I won this book from LibraryThing's September give away. When this book arrived this Friday, I sat down to see what it was about and where in the pile of my unread books it would go. Well, I read it straight through! Clover is a precocious 10 year old who on her father's wedding day becomes an orphan with a brand new stepmother she barely knows. It's a truly beautiful story about what makes a family. While this book was written in 1990, it's just as fresh as if it was just written.

Such a still very current book in so many ways---Clover is very appealing with her young but "40 year old" view of the world as the very sudden daughter of her equally suddenly widowed stepmother.