History Mysteries: Circle of Fire by Evelyn Coleman

In the center of the clearing, Mendy could see a large wooden cross wrapped in white rags. Sticks were piled under it like a bonfire waiting to be lit. A man standing near it began yelling into a megaphone. "White is Right!" The other men pumped their fists into the air and shouted, "White is Right! White is Right! White is Right!"

One man yelled, "So what are we going to do about the commie witch?"

The summer Mendy Anna Thompson turns twelve is not what she had hoped for. Mama seems to want to keep her close at home all the time, her lifelong white friend Jeffrey is suddenly forbidden to play with her, and someone has killed her tame rabbit, wrapping it in a cloth printed with a strange cross inside a circle. The only thing to look forward to is Daddy's promise to take her to the Highlander Center to hear her hero Eleanor Roosevelt speak.

Then, secretly hiding in the woods nearby, Mendy and Jeffrey witness a Ku Klux Klan rally and discover that the Klan plans to bomb the Center and assassinate Mrs. Roosevelt. When they learn that their sheriff and even Jeffrey's father are part of the Klan's plot, Mendy and Jeffrey realize that they must work out their own plan to stop the attack.

Circle of Fire (American Girl History Mysteries) is a suspenseful mystery in which the resourceful Mendy spies upon the racist rallies and identifies their leaders by observing their hands and shoes. Like all the entries in the American Girl History Mysteries, this novel is based upon an actual event, one in which an informer within the Klan (who in this book is Jeffrey's father) warns the FBI of the plot to bomb the Highlander Center during Eleanor Roosevelt's visit. The History Mysteries are a well-written and researched series which puts the reader "on the ground" during some pivotal moments in American history.

An appendix ("Looking Back, 1958"), illustrated with photos from the period, fills in the historical background of the early labor movement and Civil Rights era, especially the work of the Tennessee Highlander Center where Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks studied and were inspired.