Arilla Sun Down [Paperback]

Virginia Hamilton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1979

Struggling for a sense of identity as a part African American, part Native American, young Arilla Adams is unable to identify with a single race like her perfect older brother, the handsome, talented Jack. Reissue. SLJ. H. K. C.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Dell Pub Co (February 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440901650
• ISBN-13: 978-0440901655
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Virginia Esther Hamilton was born, as she said, "on the outer edge of the Great Depression," on March 12, 1934. The youngest of five children of Kenneth James and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton, Virginia grew up amid a large extended family in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The farmlands of southwestern Ohio had been home to her mother's family since the late 1850s, when Virginia's grandfather, Levi Perry, was brought into the state as an infant via the Underground Railroad.

Virginia graduated at the top of her high-school class and received a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs. In 1956, she transferred to the Ohio State University in Columbus and majored in literature and creative writing. She moved to New York City in 1958, working as a museum receptionist, cost accountant, and nightclub singer, while she pursued her dream of being a published writer. She studied fiction writing at the New School for Social Research under Hiram Haydn, one of the founders of Atheneum Press.

It was also in New York that Virginia met poet Arnold Adoff. They were married in 1960. Arnold worked as a teacher, and Virginia was able to devote her full attention to writing, at least until daughter Leigh was born in 1963 and son Jaime in 1967. In 1969, Virginia and Arnold built their "dream home" in Yellow Springs, on the last remaining acres of the old Hamilton/Perry family farm, and settled into a life of serious literary work and achievement.

In her lifetime, Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres that spanned picture books and folktales, mysteries and science fiction, realistic novels and biography. Woven into her books is a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as they helped define the lives of African Americans. Virginia described her work as "Liberation Literature." She won every major award in youth literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex but simply satisfying, February 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Arilla Sun Down (Point Signature) (Mass Market Paperback)

If you like stories about teenager's struggling with difficulties in life that you learn from, you will love this book. This book does not go in chronological order it is told in little snippets of a little girls memory. Arilla who is trying to find her identity but is held back because of her crazy brother and being interracial. Her mother is African American and her father is Indian, so she wants to have an Indian name to show her place in the Indian community. When she goes to visit her father's family, she is called Moon. Ordinarily, she lives in the white community, but people talk about her family because they are interracial. She is trying to live a normal 12-year-old's existence until an accident happens that will forever change her life. Her brother Sun is wounded badly when he falls off horse they are riding together. She must save him and all the while she is saying Arilla, Sun is down on the ground.

Read this intriguing, heartwarming, exciting, powerful, meaningful selection, and it will show what love, hate and life is really all about.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arilla Sun Down is the Virignia Hamilton book I reread., September 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Arilla Sun Down (Point Signature) (Mass Market Paperback)

Arilla Sun Down is the Virginia Hamilton book I reread the most. I read it first when I was a teacher of seventh graders; I read it when my children were in seventh grade; I always read it when I give book talks about children's books; I read it also when I am working with Native American books with students. I often read it aloud with students just to get them involved in it; the first part is a little different from most books; I like the way the words flow. Kids like the sibling rivalry of Arilla and her brother. I like the fact that Arilla comes from a home in which the mother is Native American and the father is African American--the bi-racial aspect. It's hard to find books with interracial families; this is one of the few and one of the best--if not the best. My female students like the parts about horses; my male students like the parts about Sun (Arilla's brother) finding his identity, being assertive when the townspeople are prejudiced against his family. All of my students like the boy-girl relationships and friendships. I recently introduced this book in my teachers book club. We read books that are for children or adolescents--but also for adults. They are books for everyone, just good books. I don't think Arilla Sun Down is a children's book; it's a book that children might read, if adults introduce them to it. Mostly it's a book that focuses on a family and particularly on the children in that family. This book is interesting because it reacquaints adults with their growing up years and tells us more about life itself at any age.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Arilla Sun Down is the book I read., March 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Arilla Sun Down (Point Crime) (School & Library Binding)

If you like stories about the hardships of a teenage girl, then you'll like this book. This book jumps around a lot and does not stary in order of events but it is still pretty good. The reason for all the jumping around is because the events are memories of Arilla, a 12-year-old girl. Arilla trys to find herself but can't because of her older brother Jack Sun Run. Arilla is always in her brother's shadow and she can't stand it. But at the end of the book that all changes. Arilla becomes the one on center stage. As she saves her brother's life she realizes that she had finally found her self, and all it took was a little time.