The Window

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

PW said that readers will "savor" this YA companion to Dorris's adult novel A Yellow Raft in Blue Water; here, a younger Rayona is sent to foster homes when her Native American mother enters rehab, but ends up with her African-American father's relatives in Kentucky. Ages 10-up. (May) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This YA companion to Dorris's adult novels A Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Cloud Chamber presents a younger version of the African and Native American heroine, Rayona. After her alcoholic mother checks into a rehab clinic, the 11-year-old's smooth-talking (usually absent) father hands her over to a social worker, who "owes" him a favor. While the book's plot, recounting the adolescent's travels from one "unofficial" foster family to the next, meanders at times, Rayona's astute, often unorthodox observations of various caretakers are in perfect focus. First there are the overly gracious Potters ("They strike me... as plush stuffed animals, squeezed up against you in a small closet so you can hardly breathe"). Then there is "strict but fair" Mrs. Jackson, a retired home economics teacher, who is just waiting for an excuse to "break rules" and have fun. Rayona feels most at home with her Kentucky relatives, who offer her the security and love she has missed during her childhood. At every stop of her circuitous journey, Rayona learns something new about herself or other people. Her vivacious personality, her honesty in the face of ever-changing emotions and her command of language will be savored. By the time she returns to her rehabilitated mother, Rayona's tiny "window" to the world has been opened a little wider. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)

Children's Literature - Alexandria LaFaye

Like J. D. Salinger and the Glass family, Michael Dorris had a literary fascination with his character Rayona Taylor. He devoted three novels to this intriguing, resourceful teenager who has to raise herself in spite of her wayward parents. In this installment of her story, Rayona meets her father's side of the family for the first time. When her alcoholic mother goes in for treatment, her father places Rayona into foster care. She's bounced around for a while until her father takes Rayona to his mother's where she learns about her secretive father's childhood and builds a relationship with her newfound extended family. This story takes a compelling look at a child's desperate struggle to find someone who is willing to put her first, while maintaining the independence she has grown to depend on for survival.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8--The story of 11-year-old Rayona, a character in Dorris's adult book, Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Her Native American mother is dysfunctional as a parent, yet Rayona obviously loves her. When Mom enters a chemical dependency treatment program, Rayona's black father, who has also been unreliable and is unwilling to care for her himself, cons a social-worker girl friend into sneaking her into a foster home. The first situation with a do-gooder family is a caricature pure and simple. Then, Rayona supposedly effects in a single evening a lasting personality shift in a rigid, retired African-American teacher. When neither placement works out, her father ships her off to the home of his mother, grandmother, and aunt. Despite the book's beautiful prose and Rayona's resilience in dealing with grim realities no child should ever have to face, there are problems. The adult characters lack depth and motivation. The girl's relatives in Kentucky, a family of women who previously appeared in Cloud Chamber, blend together, reduced to paper-doll images. Readers who go on to the adult books, which take place at different times, will find that they make no sense. As a prequel or a sequel, this is a complete non sequitir. Most troubling of all is the way the father gives Rayona power through sharing his secret with her. Rayona thinks, "Having a secret with somebody means they trust you, because you could always betray them....When you know somebody's secret, it's up to you to protect them. They need you." It is sad that neither the author nor Rayona ever seem to figure out what's wrong with that line of thought.--Carol A. Edwards, Minneapolis Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

Rayona Taylor, the heroine from Dorris's adult novels, A Yellow Raft in Blue River (1987) and Cloud Chamber (1997), is featured in this prequel, about her life as an 11-year-old who is abandoned by her Native American mother, and shuffled from place to place by her African-American father. Rayona spends time in two foster homes before she ends up with her father's mother, sister, and grandmother, who are white. Wherever she goes, Rayona has an effect on the adults—they grow and change while she stays the same. The first-person narration is sophisticated and perceptive, and seems to promise more of a story than it delivers: As the three older women and Rayona climb in a car for a cross-country trip back to the girl's mother, readers are ready for the story to begin at last, until they realize that there are only 20 pages left in the book. Dorris's lyrical writing and ability to create evocative moments will sustain those who have read his historical novels, but won't give them an idea of the real Rayona of the earlier books.