Beyond the Mango Tree [Paperback]

Amy Bronwen Zemser (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

I am here, in the rain, tied to the mango tree. The water leve rises, above my naked feet, past my ankles. I wait ...

It has been this way since Sarina's family moved to Liberia from Boston eight months ago. Her mother ties her to the mango tree in their front yard, terrified of losing her. It's never for long, and Sarina knows her mother doesn't mean to hurt her. But things just seem to get harder the longer her family stays in this country so far from home.

On good days, when Sarina's mother is feeling better, she sets her daughter free. On bad days, Sarina dangles her feet in the puddles and mud until dusk, waiting for someone to rescue her, wishing for the one thing her mother fears most: a friend.

Then one day Sarina meets Boima, a Liberian boy, and he becomes Sarina's cherished secret. He takes her to places outside her dirty yard, and shows her the ocean, the trees, and the people of Liberia. Together they discover what friendship really means ... and that there is a world of joy, hunger, and hope waiting just beyond the mango tree.

2000-2001 Georgia's Picture Storybook Award & Georgia's Children's Book Award Masterlist

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Based on the author's memories of her years spent in Liberia as a child in the 1980s, this stunning first novel reveals the schism between two classes and cultures while evoking the loneliness of a white American girl living abroad. Zemser sets a dramatic opening scene through Sarina's first-person narration: Sarina's mother, who suffers from diabetes and grows weaker and more erratic every day, has tied her to a mango tree in the corner of her family's gated grounds to keep her from straying. Boima, whose "bones protrude in places where on my own body I must press down on flesh to feel them," frees Sarina both literally and figuratively. He tells her to meet him at the market where he sells his hand-woven baskets, "I can show you all kind a something-o." She finds a way to rejoin him, and he introduces her to the world "beyond the mango tree" through ancient legends and walking journeys. When Boima invites Sarina into his home, she witnesses a level of poverty she has never seen before. Through a series of small awakenings, Sarina begins to see that no mere gate separates her world from Boima's, but rather a gulf. Zemser demonstrates exquisite crafting with a scene near the conclusion that tragically echoes the book's opening scene. The author carefully constructs the contrasts that allow readers to detect the inequalities of the society as well as the universality of friendship's rewards, through the voices of her characters, their home environments and visual images (as Boima reaches into a muddy pool to cut the twine binding Sarina's feet, she observes, "Rain drips from his eyelids as he stirs the water, creating a wave of circular patterns. His dark hands, unlike my own pale feet, do not seem to twitch in fear of the unseen bottom [of the pool]"). Zemser's poetic, wrenching narrative transports readers to a foreign land, but the truths they uncover will surely hit home. Ages 10-up.--"). Zemser's poetic, wrenching narrative transports readers to a foreign land, but the truths they uncover will surely hit home. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-8-Sarina, 12, a white American living in Liberia, is imprisoned by her diabetic mother's obsessive love and fears. From the opening scene in which the girl is tied to a tree as punishment for leaving the yard, readers realize that her home life is as unpredictably hostile and threatening as the world outside the family's comfortable compound. As she begins to explore that world with a forbidden friend, a market boy named Boima, she is both repelled and attracted by what she sees. She has a severe allergic reaction to eating a mango, gets caught in an ocean undertow, is threatened by a cobra, and learns that yellow fever kills people "quick-quick." Longing for friendship and desperate to escape her mother's neediness, she ventures further afield with Boima until, at his village home, she discovers that he has also been befriended by Te Te, the family's maid. Jealous and angry, Sarina renounces the friendship, realizing too late the parallels between her mother's unhealthy need and her own unwillingness to share or to understand Boima's desperate circumstances. Readers may find the Liberian dialect difficult at first but will be drawn into the gothic atmosphere and sense of foreboding and come to care for the characters. While it is clear that Sarina's mother's illness is responsible for much of her behavior, her negative reactions to the foreign world in which she finds herself are not uncommon. Zemser gives a realistic take on the expatriate experience. Her fascination with the country she lived in as a child shines through.
Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books (April 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0064407861
• ISBN-13: 978-0064407861
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #674,324 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realistically exotic!!, September 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond the Mango Tree (Hardcover)

I thought this was a really fantastic book, the language, the plot and the characters were all very. . . alluring. Sarina's friend Boima supplies a series of dramatic stories throughout the book and Sarina's mother's diabetec probelems are extremely captivating, a must read for anyone who would love to have a change from the everyday world.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An eminent book!, February 1, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Beyond the Mango Tree (Paperback)

Beyond the Mango Tree was an exciting four star book.It is about an American girl who moves to Liberia,in Africa because her dad is offered a job here.It was exciting because one night thieves came to her house and the guard was hit on the head and almost died and Sarina, the main character, was left alone.This book is also sad because even when Sarina doesn't do anything wrong her mother ties her to a tree and makes her stand in a dark muddy puddle. I have never read anything like this book before and recommend it to readers of all ages.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down!, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beyond the Mango Tree (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful story of friendship which crosses boundaries of class, race and gender. In spite of Sarina's momentary jealousy and suspicion, in the end she learns that love is important and transcends the boundaries her small world.