When Hurricane Katrina, and soon after, Hurricane Rita, forced the population of New Orleans from their homes children found themselves with no school to attend. The author, who was a journalist in New Orleans, and his family temporarily relocated to a friend's home in New Iberia, LA. There he contacted a teacher that his children had loved, Paul Reynaud, and proposed that he come to New Iberia and start a one-room schoolhouse for the needy students. He readily agreed and thus began the Sugarcane Academy named for the plentiful crop that grew all around the area. Finding himself without much to work with he and his students took their education where they could find it, be it a visit to the sugarcane fields, a walk to the local donut shop, and many discussions about what they had been through. It is also the story of several other 'schools' that were begun for these displaced children including one in the Cajundome. These dedicated teachers and parents brought a semblance of normalcy to these storm-struck students and helped them immensely by sometimes just listening.
This was a fairly short book but it was a 'feel-good' read. ( )