Chill Wind

November 11, 2002
Returning to territory first explored in Spellbound, McDonald here shifts her focus to Aisha, the high school dropout who was pregnant with one child already. The author once again uses a third-person narration to create Aisha's authentic voice and unique perspective, but the novel's solutions ultimately seem too simple. Aisha, now 19, has reached her five-year lifetime limit for receiving welfare and must enter workfare or "get kicked to the curb." Determined not to do any of the "slave jobs" she's been offered, she searches for another solution, such as pretending to be mentally ill or trying to convince her kids' father to marry her. She eventually realizes there aren't any "lucky breaks around the bend for a project girl on welfare with no schooling," and she goes to work patrolling the subway. Conveniently, she gets chosen to be in commercials. Her mother quits drinking, and this, coupled with her sudden bonding with her sister, add to the improbable ending. Readers get a strong sense of Aisha's world—the projects, her battles with the welfare system, her friends and their families—and the ribbing between friends reads genuine. But, in the end, with things coming so easily to Aisha, readers will be left wondering what she has learned along the way. Ages 12-up.