The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond by Brenda Woods (review)

Eleven-year-old Violet doesn’t look like her mother or her sister; they both look white, while she resembles her black father, who died in a traffic accident before she was born, and whose parents are estranged from Violet and her family. Discovering that her grandmother is showing her art at a nearby Seattle gallery, Violet decides it’s time she met her father’s mother. The surprise encounter is rocky at first, but her new Bibi quickly thaws and asks if Violet can come stay with her in Los Angeles for a week. It’s a momentous week for Violet, as gaps in her understanding of herself get filled and her heart warms to her grandmother. When tragedy strikes, Violet becomes even more important to Bibi, and it’s clear that Violet’s world and her sense of self have expanded. Violet is a winning protagonist, full of questions and full of hope. She’s believably complex: though eager to have adventures with her grandmother and meet her father’s people, she finds herself homesick as well, and she has no intention of leaving behind the people who have loved and supported her all her life just to explore this side of her family. She is angry when she finds out that it was a careless moment in her mother’s driving that cost her her father, but she also knows that it hurt her mother as much as it hurt her, and she realizes that loving the people you have is more important than lamenting the ones she’s lost. Her self-conscious reflections enable readers to parse the symbolism behind her name and see how her experiences are helping her grow into a person who fits it—a sometimes shy, sometimes sparkly and strong person to whom many readers will relate.