TONING THE SWEEP

Johnson, Angela. Toning The Sweep . New York: Scholastic Paperbacks, 1994. ISBN 0-590-48142-8

PLOT SUMMARY:
When Emmie's grandmama Ola gets sick from cancer, she and her mother travel to the California desert to help pack up her grandma's life and bring her back to live with them. As they help Ola pack up her life, old emotions are brought up, old wounds resurface, and the family must come together in an attempt to help Ola come to grips with her illness. Emmie documents friends and family's memories of Ola on a camcorder to document for her. Ola decides she doesn't want chemotherapy as she can't bear to lose her hair, Emmie and her mom must accept Ola's decision to return with them to die.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:

Many relationships are addressed in this gentle, sweeping, poetic novel. Delving under the superficial top coat, Emmie, her mom, and her grandmother Ola try to understand their past conflicts, and attempt to get past them. While Emily is the primary narrator of the story, Ola and Mama's memories and stories are interwoven throughout. Emily's desert friend David is helpful and supportive of Emily as she comes to grips with leaving the desert and the symbolism that brings with it-- that her grandmother will soon be leaving as well. Past pains are brought up as we find that Ola's husband had been shot in 1964 Alabama, and Mama was the one who discovered him. When Ola's husband died, they immediately left Alabama for the California desert and Mama had never really forgiven Ola.

The past racism that Ola and her husband experienced is a central theme. Ola's husband had saved for many years for a convertible, and when he bought it, he was berated for being uppity. The car was the object that caused the lynching, but the undercurrent of racism still existed. Ola had kept the car, and while in the desert, Emmy learns to drive it. She sneaks the car out a couple of nights, enjoying the warm desert nights, and trying to come to terms with love, loss, family, and belonging. The car, Ola's cat, her friends, and the desert represent everything in Ola's life, and she is being forced to leave it all behind.

The term "toning the sweep" is significant to the story. In Emmy's southern roots, the relatives believe that when they know someone is going to die, they would get a hammer and hit a sweep (a kind of plow) to let everyone know. They believed you had to ring it right after they died in order to get the dead person's soul up to heaven. Otherwise, the soul was thought to become restless and just lay there. Mama called Ola a restless soul for leaving Alabama, yet Ola called Mama a restless soul for moving and holding many different jobs. Emmy and Mama drive out into the desert with some of granddaddy's belongings to "tone the sweep", so his soul can rest in peace, and they can return with Ola and help her live out her last days.

The language in the novel is soft and gentle, and the way the story flows back and forth from the present to the past brings out all of the past hurts and helps them to heal. Much of the text has an African American feel, especially when Ola's friends and relatives reminisce about their memories of Ola. The book feels as if a story unfolds as we find out more about why relationships of the past have suffered. The book ends with the three women leaving the desert, each having grown and changed in their thoughts of each other.

REVIEW EXCERPTS:

Winner of the Coretta Scott King Award

Horn Book Guide:
Johnson's remarkable narrative uses different perspectives, but what is most memorable is the skill with which she moves between times past and times present without sacrificing her main story line or diluting the emotional impact.

Publisher's Weekly:
Traits that might have come across as quirky instead seem well integrated as Johnson delicately and gradually unfolds the past events that fostered such inner strength--events including the lynching of Ola's husband in 1964 Alabama. Depicting a heroine who learns to balance the most urgent feelings of love and loss, Johnson herself balances powerful themes with poise and skill.

Booklist:
The juxtapositions of past memories and the present in this powerfully moving book are as fluid as a dancer's movements. A celebratory dance of life, reflecting the ending of childhood and the beginning of womanhood and selfhood, the story is about African American history, the pain of it (Grandaddy had been lynched and Mama had found him) as well as the joy (with a camcorder, Emily tapes Ola and her many friends sharing and laughing). With ingenuity and grace, Johnson captures the innocence, the vulnerability, and the love of human interaction as well as the melancholy, the self-discovery, and the introspection of adolescence.

Kirkus Review:
Johnson leaves much to understatement, trusting readers to delve between the lines. Emily's narration is interrupted--by Mama, by Ola--in resonant testaments of love; such introspection gives the fleeting days an added poignancy. Place this brave and wonderful piece of storytelling with the best of YA fiction.

CONNECTIONS:

* Have students learn about racism in 1964 Alabama. See if you can find out how many African Americans would have had a car then, and how others might have reacted to it.

* Split the class into three groups, with one group signifying Ola, one Mama, and one Emmy. Have each group write in a journal or blog the feelings or emotions that they feel their character experienced. Look at emotions at the beginning of the story and compare to those later in the story to look at growth or changes. Then have each group compare their writings and see if there is any overlap.

* Discuss the term "toning the sweep" and see what students feel about it. Do they believe in ghosts or think that souls can be restless?

* Read a biography of Angela Johnson. See if you see any similarities between her life and those in the book. When was she born? What racism did she experience?

* Discuss racism with students. Ask them if they think it is still prevalent in today's society? In what ways?

* Emmy used a camcorder to record the stories of families and friends. Use a camcorder (flip cam) and have students interview each other. Have them tell stories about each other if possible and then watch the outcomes.