book the language of flowers by vanessa diffenbaugh

'And I think for Victoria that's what the flowers give her is a sense of success.'ĭiffenbaugh and her husband are foster parents, and while she says the novel is '100 percent fiction,' the book does draw on some of her personal experiences. 'There aren't always, especially in low-income communities, the arts and the dance and the drama and the things that can really show a kid, look, even if I'm three years behind in math, there's something I'm good at that can help me be successful in life,' she says. The flowers also represent something that Victoria is good at, Diffenbaugh says. Victoria does have a connection with flowers. 'If you've been hurt, as Victoria has many, many times, it's hard to learn how to trust again.' 'I've worked with foster kids a long time, and I think that this is something that foster kids - and really all of us - struggle with to some extent,' she says. Victoria has a hard time trusting people, Diffenbaugh tells Weekend Edition host Scott Simon. She sleeps in the park and does odd jobs in a flower shop for small change, until the power of flowers opens her life. Victoria is the central character in The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh's debut novel, which explores the complexities of foster care.Īging out of the foster care system convinces Victoria to be suspicious of all attachments.

The hawthorn means hope, which Victoria ran out of after never being adopted and then turned out of foster care and left on her own when she turned 18. The primrose means childhood, which she never really had growing up in a series of foster homes and institutions in northern California. Victoria Jones is often sullen silent, and hostile, but she speaks the language of flowers. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Language Of Flowers Subtitle A Novel Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Book the language of flowers by vanessa diffenbaugh