Mama’s Chicken and Dumplings
In 1930s Charlottesville, Virginia, ten-year-old Allie Lewis hatches a not-very-subtle plan to find a suitable husband for her mother, alone since Allie’s “no-good nobody” father ran off and got killed. How better to tempt a man than with her mother’s chicken and dumplings? But when romance begins to bloom, it’s not with Allie’s favored candidate, but with the uncle of Gwen, a classmate and school-band rival whom Allie heartily detests.
Narrated in a lively manner by Allie and set in Charlottesville’s Black neighborhood of Vinegar Hill, this is a charming and heartwarming novel, yet one that subtly reminds us from time to time of the indignities of the Jim Crow era. Allie, her friends, and her family are engaging, and it’s good to see teachers portrayed as positive role models. Vinegar Hill, mostly lost in the 1960s to “urban renewal,” is vividly portrayed. I did sometimes struggle to remember that the novel was set in the 1930s, instead of a decade earlier or later, as the occasional mentions of a popular movie or song furnish the only clues to the era. But that is an adult’s quibble about something that would likely not bother young readers at all. Middle grade.
