Running Back To Ludie

by Angela Johnson, Angelo (Illustrator)

The narrator of a collection of bittersweet verses lives with her father and aunt, but will soon visit the mother she has not seen in years and rediscover how it feels to be her mother's daughter. By the author of When I Am Old With You.

Genres: Young Adult, Poetry, Middle Grade

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Angela Johnson is the author of the Coretta Scott King Honor picture book When I Am Old with You; as well as A Sweet Smell of Roses, illustrated by Eric Velasquez; Just Like Josh Gibson, illustrated by Beth Peck; and I Dream of Trains, which was also illustrated by Loren Long. She has won three Coretta Scott King Awards, one each for her novels Heaven, Toning the Sweep, and The First Part Last. In recognition of her outstanding talent, Angela was named a 2003 MacArthur Fellow. She lives in Kent, Ohio.

Reviews

[Isaac S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Running back to Ludie by Angela Johnson.
She hasn't seen her mother in a long time and she miss her mom. She wish she had her mom back when she meets her mom its not what she thought it was. The book is written and tells about her life in a poetry form. Each page is a poem of her life she is living. I give the book a rating of the book 2 stars. It was hard for me to understand and it didn't make sense to me. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. I don't know anyone that would be interested in this book.

[Ginette Rossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Running back to Ludie by Angela Johnson is a snapshot of a young girls life without her mom. I enjoyed the writing style in this book, but at times it began to get hard to understand. I feel this book can really relate to young children missing there parent and the longing they feel to see them. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy quick reads or find interest in reading about life from a kids perspective.

[Elna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can totally see what Johnson was going for here, and I like the inclusion of pictures, but this just fell so flat. The narrator doesn't seem to have any real feelings, especially not any about such a complicated subject like her absent mother coming back into her life.

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Running Back to Ludie

It read like a first draft that needed more detail. It felt too short for me to connect to it. Basically a young teen wants to know the mother who left her. Finally she is allowed to visit and it isn’t as exciting as it seemed. But she’s happy to have made a connection. Now she won’t think of a blank when someone says mother, now she has Ludie. Ludie is portrayed as dysfunctional from the point of view of the girl, but you have to wonder why she would not only leave her daughter, but never visit? And after completing the book I still don’t know. Did I read too fast? Maybe, it is a verse novel. But if I only skimmed the surface so might young readers whom this book is aimed at. Angela Johnson’s book: First Part Last was wonderful, so I didn’t expect to be so disappointed in Ludie.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a very, very brief snapshot of a young girl rekindling her relationship with an absentee mother. But because it's so brief, it really only scratches the emotional surface. One of the strengths of a novel in verse is how deeply you can get into a character's heart. I missed that here. But what can you expect from less than 50 pages? I think it just needed more space to blossom.

[Naliyaah Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I think the book was very shot but it very good .

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mother and daughter poems.