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Loading... Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroitby Colby Cedar Smith
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Poetry.
Romance.
Historical Fiction.
Young Adult Fiction.
HTML:This enchanting novel in verse captures one young woman's struggle for independence, equality, and identity as the daughter of Greek and French immigrants in tumultuous 1930s Detroit. Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith's paternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as the American-born daughter of Greek and French immigrants living in Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America. She yearns for true love, to own her own business, and to be an independent, modern American womanâ??much to the chagrin of her parents, who want her to be a "good Greek girl." Mary's story is peppered with flashbacks to her parents' childhoods in Greece and northern France; their stories connect with Mary as they address issues of arranged marriage, learning about independence, and yearning to grow beyond one's own culture. Though Call Me Athena is written from the perspective of three profoundly different narrators, it has a wide-reaching message: It takes courage to fight for tradition and heritage, as well as freedom, love, and equality. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.39)
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Wikipedia in English
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Set firstly 1930’s Detroit, Michigan, the reader follows Mary who is a Greek-American teenager describing what she sees and experiences at the tail-end of the Great Depression. She is supposed to be a “good Greek girl” but starts to try to voice what she wants for her life. One day she finds a box of letters and doesn’t know who the people who wrote them are. This then brings in two other characters, Gio and Jeanne, who wrote the letters back in WWI.
Gio is in Greece when WWI breaks out. When an unfortunate event takes place, Gio must flee. He ends up in the United States and when he is caught as a stowaway on a ship, he is entered into the Army and shipped to France to fight in the war. At the same time we are following Jeanne, who is in France when her father, a doctor, leaves to help in WWI. She starts volunteering at a hospital to help wounded soldiers. She then encounters Gio at the hospital when he is wounded. They start to develop feelings for each other right as they are separated—Gio is sent back to fight, Jeanne sent to a convent. They are reunited again when Gio is discharged at the end of the war. This is a love story where love prevails. A family story about staying together during hard times. This is a beautiful story that I (