"A winning debut novel about a young teenage girl in Jamaica determined to bake her way out of her dysfunctional family and into the opportunity of a lifetime." Pumkin Patterson is a thirteen-year-old girl living in a tiny two-room house in Kingston, Jamaica, with her grandmother (who wants to improve the family's social standing), her Aunt Sophie (who dreams of a new life in Paris for her and Pumkin), and her mother Paulette (who's rarely home)....

"As a mother and daughter watch a bird take flight, the young girl feels a trembling in her arms and a lightness in her feet. Her mama shares that once, long ago, their ancestors actually could fly. Every night they would slip away and soar through the skies, searching for safety, looking for the promised land. Mama feels in her bones that her daughter is meant to follow those old ways, like her grandmother before her. So Mama grabs hold of her hand,...