Tag Archives: Civil Rights

Review: In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton

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In the Neighborhood of True

In the Neighborhood of True
Susan Kaplan Carlton
Algonquin Young Readers
Available April 9, 2019

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About IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TRUE

After her father’s death, Ruth Robb and her family transplant themselves in the summer of 1958 from New York City to Atlanta—the land of debutantes, sweet tea, and the Ku Klux Klan. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be Jewish or she can be popular, but she can’t be both. Eager to fit in with the blond girls in the “pastel posse,” Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before she knows it, she is falling for the handsome and charming Davis and sipping Cokes with him and his friends at the all-white, all-Christian Club.

Does it matter that Ruth’s mother makes her attend services at the local synagogue every week? Not as long as nobody outside her family knows the truth. At temple Ruth meets Max, who is serious and intense about the fight for social justice, and now she is caught between two worlds, two religions, and two boys. But when a violent hate crime brings the different parts of Ruth’s life into sharp conflict, she will have to choose between all she’s come to love about her new life and standing up for what she believes.

My Review

I found IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TRUE to be utterly addicting to read. I’d sneak a few more pages in while microwaving the baby’s lunch. Or while waiting for my older daughter to finish brushing her teeth before bed. Anytime I had more than 30 seconds free, I jumped right back into the book.

I loved Ruth’s voice. She’s frank, pragmatic and constantly caught me off guard (in a great way) with colorful descriptions of things. At first she doesn’t seem bothered by hiding her identity. She values fitting in so much more than her faith, which feels especially far away after her father’s death. She knows she’s being shallow about it. But as things happen and she begins to form connections within her faith community, the racism in her debutante community only becomes more stark and uncomfortable to Ruth. I thought that progression felt very real, raw, and powerful.

The only thing I didn’t love about IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TRUE was an element of the ending. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll add a spoiler section at the end of this post to talk about that. Over all, though, I really enjoyed the book. Check out the content section below for notes on those topics.

Recommended for ages 16 up.

Representation
Ruth, her sisters, and her mother are Jewish. Other characters are white. Many of the upscale clubs and community events are still closed to Jews and other races at the time the story happens. The story condemns those attitudes.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
15-20 instances of mild to strong profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing between boy and girl. Ruth undresses with a boyfriend. She and her sister discuss sex– which her sister, who’s in college, seems to have a lot of. Her sister sends her a box of condoms. Ruth makes plans to have sex with her boyfriend on prom night. The scene describes the lead into the event but not much of the event itself.

Spiritual Content
Ruth attends synagogue services with her mom and sister. Most of the sermon that’s related to us has to do with social justice issues.

Violent Content
Ruth’s mother tells her about a young black man who was lynched. One of the boys in Ruth’s friend circle makes some ugly racist comments. See spoiler section for more.

Drug Content
Ruth’s friends offer her Southern Comfort, which gets her very drunk the first time she has it. She drinks some again another time.

Note: I received a free copy of IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF TRUE in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which don’t cost the reader anything, but when used, help support my blog.

About Susan Kaplan Carlton

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Carlton currently teaches writing at Boston University. She is the author of the YA novels Love & Haight and Lobsterland. Her writing has also appeared in Self,Elle, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen. She lived for a time with her family in Atlanta, where her daughters learned the finer points of etiquette from a little pink book and the power of social justice from their synagogue.

SPOILER
A bomb destroys a building. No one is hurt, but it’s a building dear to many people, and clearly awful and traumatic.

So here’s my issue with the end of the book: I liked the ending as a whole. Ruth does the right thing, stands up for herself and her community, makes a place for herself– her real self. I loved that. But I felt like she ultimately chose sides.

One of her debutante friends continued to reach out to her after the trial and after Ruth goes public with her faith. But instead of acknowledging that reach across the gap, Ruth sort of retreated to her side and said she was too busy for this friendship. It’s a pretty realistic ending, so I get it.

I guess I just wanted those girls to be bigger than the moment they were in, if that makes sense. I wanted them to be able to reach across lines of race and faith and say those things didn’t matter, and I didn’t feel like that was the message there. Seriously, though, I loved the book other than that and of course, some of the content.

Review: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

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Brown Girl Dreaming
Jacqueline Woodson
Nancy Paulsen Books
Published August 28, 2014

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From Goodreads
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

My Review
After reading her novel-in-verse Locomotion, I knew I had to read Brown Girl Dreaming. I loved the descriptions of character and emotions in each poem. It’s easy to feel the family connections and the love of places, especially her grandmother’s home in South Carolina.

It’s funny—I think there’s this idea that reading and writing always come easily to people who grow up to be writers. Sometimes that’s really not the case. As a little girl, Jacqueline’s relationship with story far exceeds her ability to read or write, something that I think gives a lot of hope to young readers who struggle. There’s a strong element of courage that runs through the whole story. I loved feeling the connections between family members and the strength each one carried and how those relationships affected Jacqueline in her life and her quest to understand her place in the world.

Brown Girl Dreaming would be a great pick for a child struggling with reading, both because of the way it’s told and the struggle in the story itself. It’s also a great place to begin introducing the Civil Rights movement to younger readers.

Recommended for Ages 8 up.

Cultural Elements
Jacqueline Woodson writes about growing up as a young African American girl in South Carolina and later in Brooklyn in the 1960s.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Jacqueline’s grandmother brings her and her siblings to services to learn about being a Jehova’s Witness. They attend classes and go door to door to spread their faith.

Violent Content
She learns about a woman who fell down stairs and died.

Drug Content
Her grandfather smokes cigarettes.

Review: Loving vs. Virginia by Patricia Hruby Powell

Book Review and Content, Historical, New Adult 18up, Poetry, , , , ,

Loving vs. Virginia
Patricia Hruby Powell
Illustrations by Shadra Strickland
Chronicle Books
Available January 31, 2017

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Summary from Goodreads
From acclaimed author Patricia Hruby Powell comes the story of a landmark civil rights case, told in spare and gorgeous verse. In 1955, in Caroline County, Virginia, amidst segregation and prejudice, injustice and cruelty, two teenagers fell in love. Their life together broke the law, but their determination would change it. Richard and Mildred Loving were at the heart of a Supreme Court case that legalized marriage between races, and a story of the devoted couple who faced discrimination, fought it, and won.

My Thoughts
Somehow I missed the fact that this story is told in verse—which is admittedly ridiculous, since it’s one of the first things stated about LOVING VS. VIRGINIA. Actually, I thought I would be reading a more traditional narrative relating the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, so discovering the stark, emotive poetry in which Mildred and Richard tell their stories surprised and delighted me.

Each chapter paints a specific scene in the tale of their love. The poems create a sense of time and culture in few words and really drew me into the emotions of the characters. Fans of novel-in-verse storytelling and of historical fiction and romance should definitely read this book. Honestly, I felt like reading LOVING VS. VIRGINIA made me stop and think about how short a time ago in our history a man and woman were denied the right to love one another and be married because of their race.

I loved the message of hope and triumph in the story and the inclusion of historical timelines and other information. Those helped craft a larger understanding of what was happening in the country at the time this story really happened.

Recommended for Ages 13 up

Cultural Elements
This novel in poetry follows the historical story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman who fell in love and married in a time when interracial marriage remained illegal in their home state of Virginia. The novel shows some of the experiences of racism and prejudice against the couple and their friends.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
No explicit descriptions of sex, but readers do understand that Richard and Mildred have sex before getting married. Mildred becomes pregnant with his child more than once. At one point she makes a comment about how a man has needs—saying that she may feel guilty about having sex with him, but kind of a shrug of the shoulders, men-have-needs. I feel like, within the historical context, that kind of thinking may have been the understanding between men and women, but I wish that somewhere the author had addressed it or hinted about the lack of balance and equality in that idea. (Men are not excused from responsibility for their sexual conduct on the grounds that they “have needs”.) This might be an angle to discuss with readers either as a parent or within a classroom setting.

See violent content.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Mildred spends time in jail because she married a white man. The jailer threatens her, marching male prisoners past her cell and insinuating that he might let them assault her. It’s brief and without graphic description, but may be startling to some readers.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Scrapbook of My Revolution by Amy Lynn Spitzley

Book Review and Content, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Scrapbook of My Revolution
Amy Lynn Spitzley
Curiosity Quills Press
Published March 20, 2013

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Amber knows what it’s like to be noticed for all the wrong reasons. From her golden (literally) skin to her freakish ability to sense others’ feelings, she can’t help but stand out in a crowd. Amber is a member of an emerging super-human group referred to as Maliens, and the rest of humanity isn’t adjusting to them as well as Amber could hope. A highly vocal anti-Malien group calling itself RAMM promotes Malien oppression, even going so far as to reach out to Amber’s school principal.

As events escalate, and riots and attacks on Malien citizens increase, Amber’s fury blazes. She’s out to fight fire with fire, and she and her friends form their own pro-Malien group. Support for Amber’s group swells, and a popular band and a spokesman for the Malien cause rally to help Amber and her friends.

Well, most of her friends. Amber thinks she is just beginning to really see beneath Cam’s withdrawn exterior, but while she senses his interest, a growing frustration colors his feelings for her. Amber fights to keep her Malien cause front and center but welcomes Cam into the spotlight with her. The only problem is, that doesn’t seem like where Cam wants to be. Could he be the wrong guy for her? Maybe despite her elusive distrust for him, the dashing Malien hero Jonny Marino is more Amber’s speed after all.

Amber struggles to piece together where she belongs and her passion for her people, but everything changes when she suffers a personal attack. And as the political climate continues to heat, she will learn that not all those she counts as friends truly deserve the title.

Told as a series of journal entries peppered with emails, receipts, and other various paraphernalia, Spitzley brings readers a story of racism and explores issues of basic human rights through the voice of a passionate, intelligent young girl who bears the difficult burden of sensing the emotions of those around her. The clever pairing of skin tone and ability set this story apart from some of the other classic “super-human” tales and heightens its focus on civil rights and social issues. While readers may tire of the repetitive phrasing used to describe the ever-present emotions swirling through those around Amber, Spitzley reveals both the joys and traumas of having a constant window into the feelings of others in proximity. At first Amber appears to be a headstrong, sometimes rebellious teen, but through her pursuit of her cause, she learns that responsibility comes with leadership and grownups aren’t always the dopes they seemed to be.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate.

Sexual Content
Kissing/Making out. In a couple of scenes, girls are attacked and fondled briefly. In one instance, a few graphic details are given. Some of Amber’s friends and schoolmates make sexual comments about her or each other.

Spiritual Content
The spiritual ramifications of humanity’s possible evolution are not deeply explored.

Violence
Amber lives in a world which terrorizes its Malian citizens. While few scenes provide details, we know attacks on Malian people are common, providing a means for the exploration of civil rights and equality issues.

Drug Content
Some teens drink alcohol at parties or at school. Amber condemns this behavior, though she doesn’t openly confront it until late in the story.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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