Sugarcane Academy

“Inspirational and heartwarming.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Writing with the same warmth and humanity that distinguished his ASCAP Deems Taylor Award-winning The Kingdom of Zydeco (1998), Tisserand offers tender, revealing profiles of Reynaud, his fellow volunteer teachers and others affected by the evacuation … Inspirational and heartwarming.”
– Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

A one-room schoolhouse started by the author and other Katrina evacuees is a moving example, reviewer Susan Salter Reynolds wrote, of “the hopefulness and ingenuity of the parents, students and teachers who created the school.” Readers learn how this vibrant experiment also struggled against “established policies and protocols that become roadblocks to spiritual and physical regeneration.”
– The Los Angeles Times, “Five essential New Orleans and Katrina reads”

“A slender but appealing book … [about] a remarkable teacher named Paul Reynaud, the sort of person who has a gift for understanding children’s wants and needs…”
– Charles McGrath, The New York Times

“This wonderful memoir manages to do what a flood of news-reporting could not: see the tragedy of Katrina through the eyes of children. I was touched by the depth of feeling that wells from these pages, and I was heartened by the resilience and courage of these Children of the Storm. Katrina impressed itself indelibly on a generation of New Orleans children, and Tisserand makes the complexity real through the story of his own children and that of their friends in exile. The story of The Sugarcane Academy, an improvised one-room school in a sugar-cane parish in south Louisiana, will be one of the lasting books of our tragedy.”
– Andrei Codrescu

“Michael Tisserand knows more about life in New Orleans than anybody else I know. Sugarcane Academy is a poignant, well-written and awe-inspiring non-fiction saga of Louisiana citizens coping with Katrina’s wrath. Highly recommended.”
– Douglas Brinkley

“With his sharp eye for detail and his abundant heart, Tisserand paints a devastating portrait of the toll exacted by Hurricane Katrina, particularly on the children. Simple, compelling, and quietly dramatic, Sugarcane Academy is both eulogy and commencement — a tribute to the endurance of the human spirit.”
– Mike Sager, Writer-at-Large, Esquire

“Every so often a remarkable tale of human resiliency comes our way. It is especially moving when that saga enables vulnerable children to overcome adversity. Sugarcane Academy is a story that needed to be told. The contents of its pages open our eyes to how a disaster in New Orleans can bring forth creativity and empathy that we all need to emulate.”
– Mel Levine, M.D. author of A Mind at a Time

“A testament to the teachers who supported Katrina’s children, Sugarcane Academy reminds us all that heroes hold small hands on field trips, clean paint brushes, and sing morning songs.”
– Phillip Done, author of 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny

“Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans Teacher and His Storm-Struck Students Created a School to Remember, by Michael Tisserand … describes how a talented teacher — Lusher School’s Paul Reynaud — founded a one-room schoolhouse for his New Orleans students who had evacuated to New Iberia. Tisserand’s book is particularly memorable for its heartwrenching depiction of the grueling choices parents had to make after the storm.
– Susan Larson, The Times-Picayune

“This book delivers insightful anecdotes on the incredible misfortune Katrina wrought. But it also embodies the spirit of the people who rose from the floodwaters and dared to plant seeds of hope in the sugarcane fields.”
– Southern Living Magazine

Sugarcane Academy: How a New Orleans Teacher and His Storm-Struck Students Created a School to Remember is that seemingly impossible thing — a gentle, hopeful tale about the displaced and the small Cajun town where they landed. It’s an Oprah-worthy story sure to resonate with young urban parents, but Sugarcane Academy has a bittersweet punchline: The Tisserands’ home is relatively undamaged, but the physical and emotional landscape around it has changed for good. Like so many other families with kids, the Tisserands return home for a while, then reluctantly leave New Orleans to begin again in a city where the streets are clean and the schools exemplary . . . but the children sometimes weep for their former lives and the adults struggle to make sense of the series of events. Quiet and powerful.”
– Kevin Allman, The Oregonian

About Michael Tisserand’s Hurricane Katrina series “Submerged”

“Beautifully, tragically rendered with the small stuff that is so suddenly important.”
– David Carr, The New York Times

“I read a fine piece of journalism Friday night. … Based on my understanding of (and some experience with) daily life in New Orleans, it’s a sobering and instructive piece of writing by Michael Tisserand …”
– Brian Williams, NBC News