Heaven

Bibliography

Johnson, Angela. heaven. New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, 1998. ISBN: 0689822294

Plot Summary:

Fourteen year-old Marley lives in Heaven, Ohio with her Momma, Pops and younger brother, Butchy. Heaven is an idyllic small town where everyone knows each other and has everything that her family needs within walking distance from her house-including a Western Union. Although she has never met her Uncle Jack, Marley communicates with him-and has as long as she can remember- through letters. She does not know why he never visits or why her dad has her wire money to him on a regular basis but she has done it since she was six years old. Marley is happy with her life and content in knowing that she has a loving family and two good friends-Shoogy and Bobby. When a letter arrives from Alabama, Marley’s life is turned upside down. When she learns the truth about her family, she is forced to examine life and her place in it.

Critical Analysis

Angela Johnson has written a beautiful story about a girl, who at the tender age of fourteen learns that her family has not been honest with her. Marley’s voice feels authentic. We hear her intelligence and kindness and also her anger and confusion as she struggles with the truth. She tries to make sense of her feelings by talking to her closest friends Shoogy and Bobby. Both of these characters are well developed. For example, we learn about Shoogy’s history of cutting herself, her brother’s love of skateboarding and her that her friend Bobby has a daughter he is raising alone. Although the novel is brief, the story is well developed and rings true. Readers may initially think that the focus will be on the mysterious Uncle Jack. They will be surprised to find that although he is part of Marley’s truth, the story is essentially hers. Heaven is small town USA. As the story unfolds, readers learn the reason behind her family settling there. Its peaceful setting and the Western Union make it a perfect place.

Heaven has several concurrent themes: growing and maturing, families and their obligations to each other and friendship. Marley struggles to define who she is and where she “fits”. Her friends and family are supportive and understanding as she journeys to her conclusion. Although she does not talk too much about it with her parents, her father shows great wisdom when she asks who she is and where she belongs: “Sometimes it’s easy to tell. Just look around and notice the people who have always been there for you”(99).

Heaven contains no negative stereotyping of characters. Although there are no illustrations, the cover portrays a beautiful African-American girl. All of the characters are seen as strong, kind-hearted and productive citizens. Although not fully developed, the issue of church burnings in the south is mentioned and worried about. Marley cannot understand why anyone would want to do that and hopes that it does not happen in her community.

Johnson has written about deception and truth and how one young woman, with the help of loving parents and friends, discovers who she is and the strength to forgive.

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1998)
After spending most of her life in bucolic Heaven, Ohio, a teenager finds her certainties come tumbling down. Marley Carroll likes her family, has two steady friends, and a wandering uncle, Jack, who sends her poetic letters describing his travels and asking about her thoughts and dreams. Her peace is shattered by the arrival of a different sort of letter, addressed to "Monna Floyd," from an Alabama deacon trying to reconstruct a burnt church's records; the people she calls Momma and Pops apologetically explain that they are actually her aunt and uncle, that Jack is her father, and that her mother died in an auto accident when she was very young. Devastated, cast adrift, Marley searches for her parents in a small box of mementos, and in early memories, meanwhile struggling, in light of her new knowledge, to redefine her other relationships. Ultimately, in her friends' situations as in her own, Marley finds clear evidence that love, more than blood, makes a family. Johnson (see review, above) uses the present tense to give her ruminative, sparely told story a sense of immediacy, creates a varied, likable supporting cast, and communicates a clear sense that Marley--and Jack, still working through his grief--are going to be all right.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 1999)
Marley thinks her life in Heaven, Ohio, is perfect and secure. But when she learns that her itinerant uncle is really her father and her loving "parents" are her aunt and uncle, she has to come to terms with her feelings of anger, betrayal, and curiosity as to who she really is.

Connections:

Coretta Scott King Award, 1999

Here is an excellent source of discussion questions to use with this book:

http://www.multcolib.org/talk/guides-heaven.html

Angela Johnson biography: http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ge-La/Johnson-Angela.html

Learn about Bobby’s story in the novel The First Part Last ISBN: 9780689849237