Not an easy read but an important one.
A series of interconnected stories about real-life people illuminates the history of Tennessee’s Fayette County Tent City Movement.
The book opens with a preface, an illustrated dramatis personae showing a large cast of characters spanning two generations, a map of Fayette County, and a Prologue to Freedom that introduces the protagonist, James Junior. When a Black man stands trial for murder in 1958, the community is sobered to realize that they cannot serve as jurors because they aren’t registered voters. Two farmers lead a voter registration and mobilization drive, and as the movement grows, the community suffers repercussions, from ethnic intimidation to consumer blacklisting to eviction. A landowning Black citizen hosts evicted families in tents, and this “Tent City” makes the national news, drawing support from Black and White civil rights advocates around the country. An intense, prolonged, and often violent struggle ensues, ultimately ushering in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which legally prohibited race-based voter discrimination. The historical account is told from the perspective of young James Junior (now a 72-year-old grandfather) and is made personal through the testimonies of individuals who were crucial to the movement, those who are remembered by the community, and those who do the remembering. The episodic narrative, which oscillates between lyrical passages and straightforward prose, is sometimes too overloaded with information considering the book’s young audience. Palmer’s painterly, evocative paintings effectively capture the era, are suffused with emotional honesty, and bring reverence to the heavy subject matter.
Not an easy read but an important one. (epilogue, timeline, photographs, resource guide, bibliography, author's note, illustrator's note) (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68437-979-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl...
The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride.
A new virtual-reality theme park goes haywire on a crowd of young victims, er, visitors in Alexander’s latest screamfest.
Having scored one of just 100 coveted preview tickets to a cutting-edge, kids-only venue dubbed ESCAPE, budding amusement park fan and designer Cody Baxter is looking forward to a life-changing experience. What he gets is more of a life-threatening one, as games and rides with names like Triassic Terror and Haunted Hillside not only pit him against a monster and then zombies—or sometimes a monster and zombies—as well as ruthless competing players, but seem tailored to play on individual personal terrors. And, in some never explained way, the VR quickly turns into real battles that inflict real wounds even as the real settings shift with sudden, dizzying unpredictability. Teaming up with loyal new friends Jayson Torn and Inga Andersdottir, the former described as being Japanese and White and the latter as Norwegian, Cody (who seems to default to White) struggles for survival, learning ultimately that ESCAPE was created by an evil genius with an ulterior motive who is convinced that he can teach children a salutary lesson. The plot’s no more logical in its twists and contrivances than the premise, but the author’s knack for spinning out nightmarish situations is definitely on display here as the tale careens toward a properly lurid outcome.
Thrills galore for gamers willing to go along for the ride. (Light horror. 9-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-26047-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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