The yellow crocus book review6/12/2023 ![]() ![]() In either instance, author Laila Ibrahim has crafted a truly unique historical fiction using her own descriptive prose. ![]() In other ways, it’s a coming-of-age story as Lisbeth learns the culturally-accepted social norms of the plantation belie a genteel life. In some ways, Yellow Crocus is a love story, the kind that examines the relationship between a child and caregiver. After Lisbeth’s family separates them, Mattie takes a desperate chance at freedom, an action that eventually forces both women to make decisions in their lives that will defy all the rules. Lisbeth longs to keep Mattie close, but as the little girl grows, she realizes how cruel it is to keep her nursemaid from her own family. Mattie teaches Lisbeth everything she knows about life-from songs and prayers to eating black-eyed peas. Naturally, in due time, the new baby winnows her way into the nursemaid’s heart. The story begins as Mattie, a twenty-year-old slave leaves her own baby to be a wet-nurse for Lisbeth, the newly born daughter of her master. ![]() In a way, this flower is the ideal metaphor for Yellow Crocus, a novel about a young girl growing up with her enslaved nursemaid on a nineteenth-century Virginia plantation. While other flowers need aerated beds and warm weather, crocuses grow best in gritty soil and blossom in early spring, even when snow is still on the ground. ![]() Unlike most flowers, crocuses bloom in the most adverse conditions. ![]()
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