Sugar Town Queens

Half-Black Amandla Harden, 15, just wants a normal birthday without dealing with her white single mother Annalisa’s “notions.” In Sugar Town, a township “on the fringe of” Durban, South Africa, Amandla’s family is known both because of their poverty and because of their mixed race. When Amandla finds a stack of cash and an address, she follows it, finding her terminally ill maternal grandmother and the rest of her mother’s previously hidden rich, white family. Despite Annalisa’s reservations and warnings against Amandla’s brutish grandfather, Amandla and her Mayme want to spend time together. As Amandla learns that people from Annalisa’s past thought she had run away or died, Amandla wonders what truly caused her mother’s memory loss, and just where her father could be. Friends Lil Bit and Goodness support Amandla as they navigate their messy lives, helping her find her place—both among her real family, and the family she’s always had in Sugar Town. Nunn (When the Ground is Hard) illuminates the struggles of a cast of strong-willed South African women who build each other up while meeting the intersections of misogyny, racism, and classism head-on. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)