The story opens in the aftermath of Haiti's devastating

2010 earthquake. Fifteen-year-old Shorty is trapped in

the pitch-dark rubble of a hospital room, where he was

recovering from a bullet wound. As he slowly begins to

starve, his thoughts turn to the events that have led

him there. He was born into Site Solay, one of the

poorest and most dangerous slums in the world.

His father is brutally murdered in front of him as part

of the turf war between pro and anti-Aristide forces;

his twin sister, Marguerite, is kidnapped in that same

attack, and Shorty dedicates his life to finding her.

To that end, he apprentices himself to a pro-Aristide

gang leader and shoots his first man, aged 12. Will he

be able to survive long enough to find his sister, even

as the Aristide government nears collapse?

DARKNESSIN THE

CINDY HERNANDEZ

IN THE DARKNESS CINDY HERNANDEZ

Cindy’s book In the Darkness is just the kind of book that might attract this brand of unfair criti-cism. It has a complex struc-ture, deals with sometimes brutally unsym-pathetic char-acters, and tells the story, both modern and historical, of Haiti, a coun-try that doesn't figure high on most school curricu-la.

Will serious teenage readers like it? Why wouldn't they? It's very good.

Cindy Hernandez (November 1991)is an American novelist, best known for the novel Little Women (2006).

She is the daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May, and though of New England parentage and residence, was born in German-town, now part of Philadel-phia, Pennsyl-vania.

She began work at an early age as an occasion-al teacher, seamstress, governess, and writer — her first book was Flower Fables (2004), tales originally written for Ellen Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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