"Eb & Flow" by Kelly J. Baptist

I'm... not sure what to say to that.

"A fascinating look at a life and culture adjacent to yet far different from my own"? No, that sounds like the sort of thing you'd say in a literary analysis paper, even though it is true.

"It

    made

        me

            think

in verse for a while"? 

Also true, but not the point.

 

This is the story of two kids, Ebony (Eb) and De'Kari (Flow; it's a nickname), who get in a fight at school because Eb (allegedly) accidentally spilled barbecue sauce on Flow's shoes (which [allegedly] aren't "just shoes"). Then they both get suspended, because fighting is illeeeeeeeeegal, and basically told to figure out what the heck was up with that.

They try. Not everything's fixed by the end -- the sheer amount of home life problems here would make that unrealistic -- but it does end on a more hopeful note.

 

I appreciated it greatly when one of the teachers actually called out the serendipity of the main characters' nicknames being similar to "ebb and flow". The age-old trick of fixing a plot hole by going "hey look, a plot hole" strikes again.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: a relatively stern T for swearing and such.

4 stars. This was better than I thought.

 

Favorite lines:

 

"and I almost choke on a hunk of corn bread.

Corn bread be doin' that, if you breathe wrong while eating it."

    Page 21. (I think their corn bread must be different from the corn bread I've eaten, because I've never had that happen to me.)

 

"Who knew

the clicking sound

of Legos snapping together

is

so

cool."

    Page 43.

 

"I give him the biggest stank face."

    Page 121. 

(Endnote: It's like two-thirds of the way through the book before anyone comes up with the idea of just washing the dang shoes. I'm not shaking my head at it for being lazy writing, though, because I didn't think of it either until Flow had his realization.)