Drita, My Homegirl by Jenny Lombard

From the Publisher

A poignant story about the difficulties of leaving everything behind and the friendships that help you get through it.

Fleeing war-torn Kosovo, ten-year-old Drita and her family move to America with the dream of living a typical American life. But with this hope comes the struggle to adapt and fit in. How can Drita find her place at school and in her new neighborhood when she doesn't speak any English? Meanwhile, Maxie and her group of fourth-grade friends are popular in their class, and make an effort to ignore Drita. So when their teacher puts Maxie and Drita together for a class project, things get off to a rocky start. But sometimes, when you least expect it, friendship can bloom and overcome even a vast cultural divide.

Publishers Weekly

Lombard's debut novel unfolds through the first-person narratives of two fourth-grade classmates with very different backgrounds. Drita has just arrived in New York City from a devastated Kosovo and is worried about her depressed mother, who spends days alone in her room. She misses her best friend from home and longs to make a new friend. But Drita knows little English, and the girls at school make no effort to get to know her-including outspoken, impulsive Maxie, an African-American whose brassy demeanor cloaks a deep sadness. Maxie keeps secret the fact that her mother died three years earlier in a car accident, a loss from which she is still reeling. In a poignant encounter, Maxie's wise grandmother, acknowledging that her granddaughter's acting-out is related to her grief, advises the girl, "You got to start to let her go" and to "Let someone in." Maxie reaches out to Drita, and the two grow closer as Maxie researches Kosovo for her school project. Maxie's slang-riddled voice comes across credibly, yet passages representing Drita's thoughts sometimes seem stiff or awkward (e.g., "When Ramazan [a holy time for Albanians] is over, this is the best time for me because I always get too many presents"; "Her breath is hard like someone who is running too much"). Yet the pair's discovery of their common ground makes for a warm, often moving story. Readers will learn as much about Kosovo as about the remedy to be found in friendship. Ages 8-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Beverley Fahey - Children's Literature

Drita, an Albanian Muslim, comes from war-torn Kosovo to a classroom in New York City. It is hard to make friends when you dress different and cannot make yourself understood. Maxie, the leader of the fourth grade homeys, walks with an air of bravado and an attitude that more often than not gets her in trouble. Friendship between the two seems almost impossible. When a teacher gives Maxie an assignment to learn more about Kosovo, the tender seeds of friendship are sown. In alternating chapters, each girl reveals her deepest feelings and shows the reader just how similar they actually are. Each has experienced loss: Drita her homeland, Maxie her mother, and each has a strong grandmother to guide her. Drita's mother is suffering from depression and it is Maxie's grandmother, a nurse, who holds out a hand of hope and cements a bond between the two families. As Maxie reads her essay to the class it becomes clear to everyone the pain and loneliness that Drita has suffered and how hard she has worked to adjust to a new country. For her debut novel, Lombard has created two strong and distinct characters, sensitively explores the effects of war on one family, and illuminates the power of friendship to overcome obstacles. 2006, Putnam/Penguin, Ages 9 to 12.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5-In alternating chapters, two fourth graders tell about the development of their unlikely friendship. Drita is a refugee from Kosova who, along with her family, is finally joining her father in New York City. In a cramped apartment and without connections or language skills, her mother sinks into a serious depression, while the girl struggles to find her place in school. Maxie, a precocious African-American child who lives with her supportive grandmother and her widowed father, struggles, too; she's in constant trouble in school for her comedic efforts since her mother died. When she sees a news report on Kosova, she decides to do a project on Albanian refugees, focusing on Drita. The girls find common ground, and when Maxie's grandmother, a retired nurse, sweeps in to rescue Drita's mother, the families forge a bond as well. Maxie's attempts to help Drita understand American ways are touching, and Drita's understanding of her friend's loss is a testament to the emotional intelligence of children. Drita's story resonates with the bravery of an individual determined to become part of her new country while retaining the love of her homeland. Maxie has the cocky voice of a girl who is trying too hard to disguise her pain. More a tale of the power of love than of refugees, this first novel is imbued with the language and customs of Kosova as well as the efforts of a family attempting to regain balance. Read it aloud to groups and let the conversations begin.-Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Two girls from different worlds and cultures come together in this deft representation of immigration and multicultural friendship. Escaping the horror of war, persecution and destruction of their Albanian life, Drita and her family emigrate from Kosovo to New York City. Thrown into the school environment of rival groups and peer discrimination, Drita's lack of English, coupled with her refugee status, immediately places her in a vulnerable position. Simultaneously, Maxie, a typical urban African-American girl, struggles to stay out of trouble despite peer influences and is assigned the task of learning about the new girl as part of her social-studies project. Brought together in this way, the two girls overcome barriers of language and custom to resolve issues they both have in common. Alternating chapters in the voice of each girl reveal more similarities than differences. Both are missing mothers; Maxie is still adjusting to the accidental death of hers, while Drita is coping with her mother's debilitating depression since leaving their war-torn country. Loving and level-headed grandmothers act as surrogates. Lombard does a fine job of portraying characters displaying growth through some serious circumstances while maintaining their childlike qualities. (Fiction. 9-12)

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