MAKING DO

In Callender’s debut historical YA novel, two young people seem fated to meet in Jim Crow–era Alabama.

It’s 1940 in the Alabama town of Bessemer. Dee Deehas two goals for her first day of her senior year of high school: to look glamorous and to find her Prince Charming. She’s overcome a lot in recent years, including the death of her older sister. Now, she’s looking forward to enjoying her near-adulthood. Unfortunately, the young Black woman is quickly reminded of the dangers of the Jim Crow South when a group of White bullies threatens her and her brothers on the way to school. Meanwhile, a young Black man, Charles Stevens, has decided to leave his family’s peanut farm after a moment of inspiration at a tent revival: “I hope you can understand that I believe there’s something else out there for me to do,” he tells his disappointed father. With relatives and promising lead on a job in Bessemer, Charles hopes to ultimately find a career worthy of his curiosity—as well as a wife. As the two main characters circle each other, leading to their inevitable meeting, details of Black life in the South on the cusp of the World War II are brought to bear. Calendar’s prose is methodic and rich, summoning the language and personality of her characters with aplomb, as well as worldbuilding details: “At the store, I bought two pickles and gave one to Harriet,” narrates Dee Dee. “They were two for five cents. I felt I could splurge and use my ironing money, with this being the first successful day of school!” Callender dives deep into the family dynamics of both Dee Dee and Charles, and readers come to have a firm understanding of their psychologies. However, the book’s pace is as slow as Dee Dee’s five-mile walk to school, and the plot is a near-constant stream of digressions that, while often intriguing, keep the narrative from ever gaining significant momentum. Readers of YA fiction who are used to modern pacing may find this slice-of-life tale a bit too leisurely.

A well-drawn historical drama, but one with an antiquated sense of storytelling.