Teen Fiction

Chill Wind

Name: Chill Wind
Author: Janet McDonald
ISBN: 9780374411831

by Janet McDonald

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Overview

A tough and funny project girl manages to make that chill wind blow away

The good life, according to Aisha Ingram, is easy. It's hanging with friends, dancing, listening to music, whatever . . . but it doesn't include worrying about the future. Chilling out is her mantra until she receives a sixty-day termination-of-welfare-benefits notice. Without her monthly food stamps and assistance checks and with no help from the father of her two children, Aisha's life threatens to become a little too "chilly." The clock is ticking and she doesn't have many options, but one thing she knows for sure: workfare is not for her. There's no way she's going to scrub subway cars or sweep city sidewalks. Aisha tries to come up with other ways to get money, but things don't look good. Soon another notice comes: only thirty days left. Then she sees an ad on TV for BIGMODELS, and she figures she might as well check out the agency. After all, she is pretty enough. But just when it looks like Aisha's problems might be solved, things grow crazy again.

In Aisha, Janet McDonald has created a larger-than-life heroine who finds and succeeds at what is right for her. Chill Wind is the winner of the 2003 Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe New Talent Award.

Afraid that she will have no where to go when her welfare checks are stopped, nineteen-year-old high school dropout Aisha tries to figure out how she can support herself and her two young children in New York City.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Returning to territory first explored in Spellbound, McDonald here shifts her focus to Aisha, the high school dropout who was pregnant with one child already. The author once again uses a third-person narration to create Aisha's authentic voice and unique perspective, but the novel's solutions ultimately seem too simple. Aisha, now 19, has reached her five-year lifetime limit for receiving welfare and must enter workfare or "get kicked to the curb." Determined not to do any of the "slave jobs" she's been offered, she searches for another solution, such as pretending to be mentally ill or trying to convince her kids' father to marry her. She eventually realizes there aren't any "lucky breaks around the bend for a project girl on welfare with no schooling," and she goes to work patrolling the subway. Conveniently, she gets chosen to be in commercials. Her mother quits drinking, and this, coupled with her sudden bonding with her sister, add to the improbable ending. Readers get a strong sense of Aisha's world-the projects, her battles with the welfare system, her friends and their families-and the ribbing between friends reads genuine. But, in the end, with things coming so easily to Aisha, readers will be left wondering what she has learned along the way. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

About the Author, Janet McDonald

Janet McDonald (1953-2007) was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and has set two other books in the Brooklyn projects, Spellbound, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and Twists and Turns, an ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults.

Reviews

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Editorials

From the Publisher

"McDonald writes with such honesty, wit, and insight that you want to quote from every page and read much of this story aloud to share the laughter and anguish, failure and hope, fury and tenderness, of black project girl Aisha Ingram . . . The truth of the characters and their talk and the energy of the neighborhood . . . will grab readers from everywhere." —Starred, Booklist

"The language is real and believable and evokes life in an urban setting. Determination, familial love, and courage are the themes examined." —School Library Journal

"McDonald deserves kudos for her gritty, unsentimental portrait of day-to-day life in the projects." —Kirkus Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Hanna Morrill

Nineteen-year-old Aisha Ingram tries to recall "chillin'" with her boyfriend at Coney Island and skipping school, but these are just distant memories. Now, with two young children, sixty days until the termination of welfare, and no job because she dropped out of school, Aisha is in trouble. Also, Aisha is forced to live with her alcoholic mother because she receives no help from the children's father. The only thing this single mother from the projects knows is that workfare is not for her. While trying to avoid working one of the jobs welfare suggests, Aisha answers an ad for BIGMODELS. She thinks she is pretty enough and has the "big" part down. Aisha has high hopes that she deserves the chance to find a real job and turn her life around. This Coretta Scott King winner is an enjoyable read. There isn't a detail missed, includ-ing the language used and the daily situations that occur in the projects of Brooklyn.

School Library Journal

With her welfare benefits running out and no help from her children's father, 19-year-old Aisha is forced to examine her options. She remembers the words of her friend Raven (the central character in the author's Spellbound [Farrar, 2001]): "-nowadays they kick you off welfare after five years. So you won't be chillin' for long." While Aisha's alcoholic mother continues to offer some help and occasional baby-sitting, the teen procrastinates. She determines that workfare isn't for her, and eventually decides to answer an ad for "BIGMODELS, Inc." Despite an argument with the agency's receptionist, she manages to impress the president of the company. Bullish yet naive, Aisha stops at nothing to find and succeed at what is right for her. Well-drawn secondary characters move the story along and the plot develops at a comfortable pace. The language is real and believable and invokes life in an urban setting. Determination, familial love, and courage are the themes examined and while the fairy-tale ending isn't particularly believable, teens will find it satisfying.-Janet Gillen, Great Neck Public Library, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

When her welfare benefits dry up, Aisha, a 19-year-old black single mother with two children and no high school diploma or work history, has to figure out a way to support herself and her family. Although not precisely a sequel, MacDonald picks up a secondary character from Spellbound several years later, again wowing the reader with her authentic voice and invigorating dialogue. When the reader last saw Aisha, she was "chillin'," living with her mother and daughter while the system picked up the tab. Now, she has a son as well as a daughter, but still no education, husband, or marketable skills. After a prolonged, somewhat repetitious setup, during which Aisha tries feigning mental illness to keep her benefits, then fruitlessly appeals to the father of her children and various relatives for support, she realizes that she's on her own. Aisha, who is short and fat but quite comely, decides to try her hand as a plus-size model. Although her big mouth and bad attitude initially get her into a heap of trouble, she eventually lucks into an incredible job, gaining a measure of fame and fortune. Aisha does mature in the course of the story, taking responsibility for her situation, relinquishing her pugnacious posture, and making peace with her abusive, alcoholic mother (who unexpectedly gives up the bottle), but the unearned Hollywood ending doesn't jibe with the rest of the story. Nonetheless, MacDonald deserves kudos for her gritty, unsentimental portrait of day-to-day life in the projects.