Listen for the Fig Tree

by Sharon Bell Mathis

A sixteen-year old black girl's first celebration of Kwanza gives her a sense of the past and strength to deal with her troubled mother and her own blindness.

Genres: Christmas

143 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1974

About the author

Sharon Bell Mathis (born 1937) is an American librarian and author who has written books mainly for children and young adults.

Mathis was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She started writing at an early age, and her love of reading was fostered by her parents. Her mother, a poet, encouraged her to write. In 1958, she earned a degree in Sociology from Morgan State College and, in 1975, went on to earn a master's in Library Science from the Catholic University of America.

Mathis has written many books for children and young adults, and has received many accolades in her career. Her book Ray Charles, a nonfiction biography of Ray Charles, received the Coretta Scott King Award. The Hundred Penny Box received a Newbery Honor Award and is a recipient of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and also an American Library Association Notable Children's Book. English Journal placed Mathis alongside writers such as Toni Cade Bambara and Nikki Giovanni, characterizing them as "describing a black consciousness of self- celebration rather like that which flowered during the Harlem Renaissance and was somehow lost, at least in literature, in the intervening years of social upheaval." Teacup Full of Roses was a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. It was described, also in English Journal, as "a celebration of black family life, not of the stereotypical enduring parents, but of the children who find their strength in giving to each other."

Reviews

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvina (or Muffin) is a 16-year-old black girl who went blind at the age of 10 because of glaucoma. When the story begins, it's a few days before Christmas. Her mother, Leola, is becoming an alcoholic. Her father was killed on Christmas day the year before, by two black men that were riding in her father's cab. Leola blames the police for his death and has fallen apart in the following year. Muffin has some good friends that help her through the Christmas season, including an attempted rape, until she feels she has found the strength she needs in the black celebration of Kwanza.

This book was fascinating. The reader is brought into the world of the blind while getting a strong dose of "black power". Mathis combines several problems - alcoholism, blindness, murder, rape, and minorities together in a very realistic and compelling story.