With the Fire on High
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award–winning title The Poet X comes a dazzling novel in prose about a girl with talent, pride, and a drive to feed the soul that keeps her fire burning bright. Winner of the California Young Reader Medal!
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela.
The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.
Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
Plus don't miss Elizabeth Acevedo's Clap When You Land!
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Sprinkled with recipes that read like poetry, Elizabeth Acevedo’s inspiring novel weaves the magic of food into everyday life. Emoni Santiago has a gift for cooking. She aspires to become a chef, but she knows it’s a long shot for a high-school senior with a two-year-old daughter. Written with verve and heart, With the Fire on High is a story of the all-too-familiar struggle between passion and responsibility. Emoni starts out afraid to follow her heart, but a few plot twists and flavorful dishes later, she—and Acevedo—will have you believing in the power of dreams.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stunning sophomore novel from National Book Award and Printz winner Acevedo (The Poet X), Afro Puerto Rican and African-American Emoni Santiago, a high school senior, lives in Philadelphia with her two-year-old daughter, Emma nicknamed Babygirl and paternal grandmother, 'Buela. A talented cook, Emoni balances school, work at a local burger joint, and motherhood including shared custody with her ex-boyfriend, Tyrone with moments in the kitchen, where her "magical hands" create dishes that allow the eater to access deep, surprising memories. But she's not sure what to do with her passion, or after high school, until enrolling in a culinary arts elective helps her to hone her innate cooking skills in the classroom and during a hard-won weeklong apprenticeship in Spain. As she gains practice at leadership and fund-raising, she also cautiously develops a budding relationship with new student Malachi, a boy who respects Emoni's boundaries. Acevedo expertly develops Emoni's close female relationships, which are often conveyed through the sharing of food and recipes, and which shape and buoy Emoni's sense of her own direction and strength. With evocative, rhythmic prose and realistically rendered relationships and tensions, Acevedo's unvarnished depiction of young adulthood is at once universal and intensely specific. Ages 13 up.
