Sugar

Content Warning: This novel and review contain references to racism, enslavement, death, physical abuse, and graphic violence. 

Cultural empathy, hope, and resilience take center stage in Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes. A work of middle-grade historical fiction that heavily leans into the Southern literature genre, the Sugar centers on the defiant, courageous, and spunky 10-year-old Sugar who becomes the catalyst for increased intercultural empathy due to forbidden and unlikely yet illuminating friendships with young people of different races. Free from enslavement for the past five years, Sugar finds her life at a crossroads; although eager to start life anew post-Emancipation, she is stuck living with surrogate grandparents and working at the same plantation where she was enslaved without any blood relatives around. What initially seems like the same old entrapping environment, however, sees a major change that piques the young girl’s curiosity and propels the plot: the arrival of Chinese immigrants to harvest sugar cane.

Set amid the Reconstruction Era in Louisiana, Rhodes crafts an incisive historical tale that both informs its young readers of past racist oppression and teaches them to stand up to injustices today. Sugar’s award-winning status and translations into multiple languages speak to the potency and appeal of its accessible narrative that illuminates an important aspect of American history. 

Sugar is the second book in The Louisiana Girls Trilogy. The story is simultaneously sweet and honest. Rhodes successfully balances a story about two oppressed peoples and the real hardships they faced with the unlikely yet illuminating intercultural friendship between Sugar (a formerly enslaved girl), Billy (the plantation owners’ white son), and Beau (a young Chinese immigrant worker). Through their example, young readers learn how much they can gain from listening to each other’s stories, experiences, and wisdom. It masterfully navigates a difficult and less studied era of history, one that still has ramifications in the United States today.

The story is set against the backdrop of the Reconstruction Era in the American South, where 10-year-old Sugar, a formerly enslaved young girl, still lives and works on the River Road plantation where she was raised. She lives with Mister and Missus Beale, who took her in after Sugar’s mother died, becoming her surrogate grandparents. Although her friendship with Billy Wills, the son of the plantation owners, is forbidden, she is unafraid to bend the rules and bravely counter those who attempt to constrain her. Further, the arrival of the newest workers at River Road—immigrants from China—puts her curious and tenacious nature to the test.

The Beales thwart Sugar’s attempts to learn more about the Chinese immigrants until Sugar finally challenges Mister Beale to put himself in her shoes. He admits that he, too, would be doing all he could to learn about them and finally agrees to let her forge a relationship with River Road’s newest inhabitants. 

Sugar is a middle-grade book that is a joy to read, even as an adult, and one that parents will want to encourage their children to experience. The book’s positive portrayal of intercultural empathy and friendships is just as relevant today as it was in 1871, the time in which the book is set. Sugar is a complex female protagonist who has faced significant hardship at the young age of 10, and her ability to hold onto hope and joy amid grief and change makes her an excellent example for young readers.

As the story progresses, Rhodes gives more insight into the current dynamic between Sugar and the other characters in the book, such as Mister and Missus Beale, the Wills, and the ruthless overseer, Tom, as well as more context as to how these relationships formed. Although the Beales are at times strict with Sugar, they love her as their own and treat her as a granddaughter. The Wills and Tom have a more complex relationship with Sugar. The book does not shy away from breaking down the power imbalances between the characters and where each of them fits into the unjust systems of enslavement and racist oppression. The Wills are, at first, adamant that Billy and Sugar will not be friends. It takes Billy nearly dying from a fever for his parents to see how true the friendship is; Sugar refuses to leave his side until he is better. Additionally, Tom is bitter about the rapid changes at River Road, where he has worked for 20 years. In Tom, Rhodes has created a true villain for readers to hate, one whose personality is representative of some people’s racist attitudes post-Civil War.

The conflict between Mr. Wills, who is the voice of someone who was wrong but acknowledges the changes that must happen, and the stubbornness of Tom dramatizes the political landscape of the American South in the Reconstruction Era. Rhodes also brings the Chinese immigrants to life, beautifully weaving in parts of their culture such as Chinese New Year and Dragon Tales. The Dragon Tales, as well as the Beales’s stories about Br’er Rabbit, are intertextual elements that help young listeners learn about justice and peace. By including these in her book, Rhodes delves further into these themes in a way that is entertaining and educational for her readers.

Where Rhodes’s narrative shines most is in her characterization of Beau. Beau is one of the Chinese immigrants and a lovable side character in the book. He is older than both Sugar and Billy and takes responsibility for taking care of them. One of the most moving scenes that will have readers reaching for their tissues is when Sugar is visiting him and the other immigrant workers on Chinese New Year. She tells Beau she feels sad because her Ma died on New Year’s Day. Without hesitation, Beau scoops Sugar up and leads workers, both Black and Chinese, to visit the River Road cemetery. Mister Beale points out his son’s grave, and Sugar finds her Ma’s. In this chilling scene, they tell the Chinese workers that planting and harvesting sugar cane is one of the hardest and most physically taxing jobs one can have, meaning many enslaved people died young doing it. This scene might be hard for younger readers because it deals with death, but it is an important aspect of the book that allows them to understand the devastating, violent truth of enslavement and racism amid the Reconstruction era.