AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER OF BROWN

In the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education, an African American girl in the 1950s Midwest finds her life complicated by the repercussions of desegregation and the new pride of the civil rights movement.

In this historical novel, 8-year-old Lauren Sullivan is not enthusiastic about being one of the first Black children to enter the formerly all-White Garfield Elementary School in Kansas City. But, as her mother explains, new integration laws leave her no choice. Still, the laws cannot force changes in attitudes, and Lauren faces uncomfortable challenges in her new school, from the outright rejection of her White classmates to the less-than-benign indifference of her teacher, who seems content to let her bright new student simply disappear. In Lauren’s supportive home, where she lives with her mother, Helen; her gentle brother, Danny; and her grandparents Ezra and Clarice, she also confronts the contradictions of living in a racist society. Ezra’s distrust of White people is grounded in the long-ago lynching death of his brother. In addition, Ezra claims that Clarice responds to racial prejudice by “out-whiting the white folks.” Helen left Lauren’s father, Lawrence, years before. He was drained by depression and apathy stemming from the lack of opportunity for Black Americans. With an innate determination to learn and succeed and the strength and love of her remaining family, Lauren negotiates the hurdles of her adolescence and young adulthood. Some of these problems are driven by racism; others, such as sexual assault and domestic violence, by sexism. But over and over, Lauren refuses to allow these forces to defeat her as she develops into a confident young woman, going places her elders hardly dared imagine. Robinson’s poignant prologue does an effective job of evoking the “fog of ambiguity and contradiction” that characterize the mid-20th-century America into which Lauren is born. Lauren’s story is captivating, moving, and instructive without being didactic, depicting both the subtleties and the overtness of racism through the eyes of one of its most innocent victims, an observant child. An overly abrupt, unsatisfying ending, strangely focused on romantic love, mars an otherwise carefully drawn portrait of African American resilience.

A vivid and dynamic coming-of-age story framed by the struggle for civil rights.