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First they visited their long-lost mother in Oakland in One Crazy Summer, they returned to life with their father in Brooklyn in P.S. Be Eleven, and now the Gaither girls are back--this time visiting their paternal relatives in rural Alabama--in Gone Crazy in Alabama, the third and final installment of the series from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia.
Much like the previous two novels, Williams-Garcia paints an all-at-once funny, poignant, and unflinchingly realistic look at life in the 1960s for these three young black girls and their family. As their father reminds 12-year-old Delphine and her younger sisters Vonetta and Fern while he's telling them to be on their best behavior, "the South's not like Bed-Stuyvesant and you can't get more southern than Alabama."
And truer words have never been spoken: they get their milk and butter from a cow, the best entertainment is hearing their great-grandmother and great-aunt tell conflicting stories about their decades-long feud, and, perhaps most notably, they experience the very real presence of the KKK. But when a potentially deadly storm strikes, things get even more real as Vonetta goes missing after a fight with her sisters. Will the Gaither girls and their family ever be the same after their time in the deep South?
This historical fiction novel really tells it like it was, and will make a gripping read for 5th to 8th graders, whether or not they've already enjoyed the previous two books in the series.
The second book in the Sixties Trilogy, Revolution by Deborah Wiles is
set in 1964 during Freedom Summer in a small town in Mississippi. The story is
told by twelve-year-old Sunny who not only narrates what is going on in her
family but also the story of what is happening in her town. Both her personal
life and that of her town are being invaded. Her dad has recently remarried a
woman with two children and the town is the site of college students working to
register the black vote and to integrate public venues.
It is a troubling time on all fronts and like the previous volume (Countdown) this one also includes many photographs, song lyrics, and quotes from the period. To extend the story the author has included many film clips from the period that can be found on http://ow.ly/vBGTc. This is an important story that will linger long after the book is closed.
For readers in grades 5 through 8.
I always love a good dog story. Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts is a GREAT dog story, even if it takes a bit of time to get to the good parts. But it's also a story about a young black girl living in a time when people were mean to her just because of the color of her skin. Can you believe that? Why would anybody do such a thing? Well, that's how it went many years ago, and Kizzy Ann wrote a lot of letters to her teacher at the "white" school talking all about her life. She especially loved writing about her Border Collie named Shag, her protector and her best friend. If you like reading books written in the format of letters to a friend, this is the book for you. And if you want to know a little more about herding dogs and a lot about history, you'll really like this book too.
For 4th - 8th grades.
FEBRUARY 2013
