Yesterday's Rain

by Kim Sigafus

Overview

Yesterday’s Rain is the second book in the Sydney’s Journey Series. Sydney is still working through her guilt over being a bully at her previous school on the White Earth Reservation. When she accidentally takes a punch in the face that was aimed at her gay friend, everyone expects her to fight back, but her response is totally unexpected. Bullies can change, as Sydney proves at her new school. Can Sydney help her best friend heal an old friendship by demonstrating forgiveness?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939053428
Publisher:	Book Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Series:	Sydney's Journey , #2
Pages:	110
Sales rank:	1,090,955
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.25(d)
Lexile:	HL590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kim Sigafus is an award-winning Ojibwa writer and photographer whose family is from the White Earth Reservation in northwest Minnesota. She is an Illinois Humanities Road Scholar and gives presentations on Native harvest, history, and music. She coauthored two award-winning books: Native Writers: Voices of Power and Native Elders: Sharing Their Wisdom. Sigafus is also the author of three PathFinders novels for reluctant readers: Nowhere to Hide, Autumn’s Dawn, and Finding Grace. She resides with her husband in Freeport, Illinois.

Editorial Reviews

2022-05-10
Friendships end for all types of reasons; sometimes they can even be mended.

In this sequel to Whisper to the Sky (2022), Sydney is still navigating the transition from being a bully at her old school on the reservation to being bullied by others in her new school in Minneapolis. She is being targeted less frequently, but her new friend, Finn, is not so fortunate. Finn is persecuted for being gay, and he reveals to Sydney how ringleader Jeremy was once his best friend, before he came out. When Jeremy, who is a football player, aims a punch at Finn but misses and instead hits Sydney, their whole world turns upside down. Sydney proposes that Jeremy’s punishment be helping her and her mother with household chores, something he agrees to reluctantly in order to save his future on the team. However, it gives them time to get to know one another outside of school. Sydney tries to forgive not only herself for her past actions, but her father and Jeremy for hurting her. This accessible title is engaging thanks to plenty of character development. Sydney has her faults and makes errors as she learns and grows, both in her relationships and in her understanding of herself, allowing the story to explore tough topics like homophobia. As in the previous book, Sigafus enriches the story with Ojibwa culture and vocabulary. Resources about bullying support the text.

A thoughtful story for reluctant readers about the power of forgiveness. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews