Book Reviews

When Kambia Elaine Flew in From Neptune

Simon & Schuster, 246pp., $17

In Lori Aurelia Williams' intriguingly titled novel for young adults, young Shayla Dubois tells the story of how her life changed when the little girl Kambia Elaine moved in next door. Shayla is one of those staples of children's lit -- a narrator who's a bit of an outcast among her peers at school, sensitive but street-smart, wise beyond her years, but not too wise so that there's nothing to be learned in life.

Set in a low-income Houston neighborhood known as the Bottom -- whose squalid detail Williams describes effectively -- the novel follows Shayla as she negotiates the life around her. First, her older sister, Tia, is clashing with their mother over her seemingly dim-witted boyfriend, Doo-witty. After her mother finds condoms in Tia's drawers, she says, "There can't be but one woman in my house. I won't have no woman-child." Soon Tia, much to Shayla's dismay, up and leaves without a trace, leaving her with her mother and wisdom-spouting Grandma Augustine. There's also the matter of Shayla's father, Mr. Anderson Fox, who left her when she was a baby and whose visits ever since have been sporadic at best. Suddenly he's back in her life, charming her mother, and Shayla is none too happy about it.

And finally there's Kambia Elaine, a skinny girl whose mother welcomes a parade of men into her house each night. Kambia quickly becomes Shayla's best friend but she's an oddball, always telling Shayla wacky stories, like about the Wallpaper Wolves that "live in your wallpaper ... have five-inch fangs, fiery red eyes, purple horns, long sharp claws, and spiky gray fur ... and when you walk by, they can reach out and grab you." Shayla laughs off such stories, not really believing them. But when bruises start to show up on Kambia in odd places and she blames them on these made-up creatures, Shayla wonders if the stories aren't masking something awful, something Kambia could never talk about.

When Kambia Elaine Flew in From Neptune, which could be termed a coming-of-adolescence novel, is both lovely and hard-edged, full of charming and loving characters who happen to live in an often harsh world. Although at times Williams, a 1996 graduate of UT's Michener Center, can be a bit preachy in driving home the moral lessons inherent in any work aimed at children, the grace, wit, and buttery-rich language overcome such heavy-handed moments. The result is a book that children will consume with much delight.