"Grateful Homage: A Day for Rememberin' by Leah Henderson

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, was established to honor those who gave their lives fighting in the Civil War. This is the story of the first Memorial Day celebration.

Nine days. Papa up early and gone again. He said important work has to be done--man's work.

Young Eli goes where his papa says he needs to go--to school, learning to count and read. They aren't enslaved anymore, but he knows something important is happening. The men are rebuilding the Old Race Track Building, and finally, on day ten he gets to march off with them, helping to whitewash the fence and columns and get ready for the celebration on the next day.

Dressed in his best, he and the other children carry flags and bundles of flower petals, crosses, and wreaths, singing about "John Brown's Body," singing for the buried Union soldiers who died there fighting for their freedom.

Thousands of hands sprinkle thousands of spring blossoms. The graves become a bed of petals and roses. The flag snaps in the breeze.

Pastors preach sacrifice, abolitionists proclaim freedom. We will never forget those Union soldiers... what they've given of themselves for the priceless gift of our liberty.

Once known as Decoration Day, today Memorial Day is a holiday observed nationwide on May 30, but in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1865, the memorial service for the dead of the Civil War was held by ten thousand newly freed slaves and abolitionists at the Washington Race Track on May 1, 1865, the very first of many days of remembrance across the country.

In Leah Anderson's beautiful commemoration of the first memorial day observation of the Civil War, A Day for Rememberin': Inspired by the True Events of the First Memorial Day (Abrams Books, 2021), is told through the eyes of a young newly emancipated boy who is already learning to read and work with numbers, helping to begin the tradition that became a national holiday as the he meaning of this observation was eventually widened to include victims of all American wars.

Henderson's account is respectful, engaging, and moving, and the Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist Floyd Cooper's monumentalist artistic realism brings the story touchingly to life. With an author's note and historical account of the holiday, The Roots of Decoration Day, Charleston, 1865, a timeline, a list of other cities with claims to the first memorial day celebrations, selected bibliography of books, newspapers, and period journals, as well as videos by PBS and the Hisory Channel, this book is a solid resource for young scholars fascinated by the Civil War.

"An enchanting account of the first Memorial Day, this book is recommended for all," writes School Library Journal.

Speak Your Piece! Alaina And The Great Play by Eloise Greenfield

I HEARD MY MOM COMING UP THE STEPS, SING THE SONG ABOUT ME--"ALAINA, MY BEAUTIFUL ALAINA" AND I KNEW THAT SLEEP TIME WAS OVER.

TODAY I LAUGHED AND STOOD UP ON THE BED, AND I JUMPED AS HIGH AS I COULD.

>"I'M UP! I'M WAAAY UP IN THE AIR!"

For Alaina, this is a big day--the second grade play--and out of all the Kindergartners, she has been picked to make a speech at the end--only five words, but she can't wait!

Dressed in brand-new jeans, she waves goodbye to her mom, who promises to be back in the afternoon to see the play and hear her speech.

As the day goes by, the school fills with anticipation. Alaina says her speech over and over in her head and to anyone who will listen. It seems the whole school is a-twitter with anticipation, especially after lunch when they catch a glimpse of parents heading for the auditorium and of the second-graders, dressed like college students--the boys in letter tees and the girls in makeup and dangly earrings. At last they arrange themselves on the stage, ready to pretend to chat, joking and laughing, like real grown-up college students.

Alaina takes her place in the wings, just out of sight of the students and parents seated in the auditorium, the five words of her speech running constantly through her head. The curtains open and the play begins. The actors pretend to get mad at each other. The yelling seems so real tha Alaina wants it to stop. But then they settle their problem and have a party--with dancing!

MISS WHEELER CLOSED THE CURTAINS, REALLY REALLY SLOW.

THEN THEY OPENED AGAIN, AND THE KIDS BOWED, AND THE AUDIENCE STOOD UP AND CLAPPED AND CLAPPED.

And then it was time for Alaina to come to center stage and say her speech. But carried away by the thrill of performance, when she opened her mouth, different words came out!

"WASN'T THAT GREAT? WASN'T IT STUPENDOUS?"

And as Alaina finishes off with a few cartwheels, Miss Wheeler gives her a look and quickly begins to bring down the curtains.

But in noted author Eloise Greenfields's latest, Alaina and the Great Play (Alazar Press, 2021), the stagestruck Alaina has the last word, or words--

"THANK YOU FOR COMING! GOODBYE!

Author Greenfield catches perfectly the nervous excitement and energy of a school performance with parents present, and artist Colin Bootman's glowingly realistic paintings capture the magic of a school play day in this outstanding books for preschool and primary readers. Writes Booklist's reviewer, "A wonderful story to explain what theater is and how it conveys storytelling to an audience."

Steal Away, Steal Away: Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.

I started out no more than a bunch of rags on a Virginia plantation. Miz Rachel done a fine job puttin' me together, takin' extra time to sew my face on real careful, with thread, embroidery they call it.

When she's done, Miz Rachel give me to her little girl, Lindy. Lindy hugs me hard. "Your name be Sally." From that first day, when Lindy be somewheres, I be with her.

Lindy takes Sally to sit around the campfire after work, listening to the folks telling stories and sometimes talking softly about Freedom, saying you have to go somewhere called North to get it.

Sally goes everywhere with Lindy and her mother, tied with a string around her waist so Lindy can help her mother pick cotton in the field. She takes her to bed every night, and Sally doesn't mind if Lindy rolls on top of her.

But one morning, Lindy's daddy Henry is gone. Massa and some men go after him and bring him back, but Miz Rachel says he's been sold South, and after that Miz Rachel is sad and quiet. And when Lindy gets whipped all over her back for asking Massa's son how to spell her name, Miz Rachel is quiet and sad.

"Lord, don't let Massa be sellin' my baby away like he done her papa."

One night soon after, Miz Rachel wakes Lindy in the middle of the night and, with Sally tied around Lindy's waist, they steal away just like in the song and run toward the North. At the river they meet up with Lindy's father Henry and a man with a skiff who rows them across to the other side and takes them to a dark house. A kind man and a white-haired lady take them inside where the man pulls back a rug in the kitchen, removes some boards and opens a trap door with a ladder to the tiny room below.

"We almost to Freedom, Sally," Lindy whispers.

But after a few hours they are wakened abruptly. Slave catchers are coming, and they quickly leave the house to hide in the woods. But in the hurry up the ladder, Lindy drops Sally, who falls back down in the dark little room under the floor, where she lies for a long time, with no company but a mother mouse and her babies--until one night there's another family going North, and their little girl Willa finds the doll in the dark room.

Willa hugs me so hard. "Your name Belinda."

I like that. Sounds like Lindy.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson's story of the Underground Railroad,Almost to Freedom (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book) (CarolRhoda Books) makes use of the narration of a beloved doll to tell the story of a families seeking freedom in that period of slavery before the Civil War through the eyes of the girls who loved her. Nelson artfully uses dialogue to reveal the emotions of a family trying to stay together as they escape to the North. With the help of the Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist Colin Boatman's vivid oil painting illustrations, author Nelson poignantly reveals the pain of slavery through the eyes of a child, softened by the comfort of a doll which two girls share.  Says School Library Journal, "... ultimately a story of hope and resilience, love and friendship." Pair this one with Ellen Levine's Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad.

You Go, Girls! The Quickest Kid in Clarksville by Pat Zietlow Miller

I RUN IN PLACE, PRETENDING I'M THE FASTEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

OF COURSE, WILMA RUDOLPH, WHO GREW UP IN THIS TOWN, IS THE FASTER THAN ANYONE. BUT I AM THE QUICKEST KID IN CLARKSVILLE, TENNESSEE.
Alta can't help thinking about how it would feel to be the fastest woman in the world, to have three big heavy gold medals around her neck, to be the fastest and the best.

And then a new girl comes sashaying down the street, wearing brand-new running shoes with laces so clean and white that they glow like neon.

I'M CHARMAINE!" SHE SAYS.

"GOT ME SOME NEW SHOES!"

Alta's shoes are what you might call well broken-in, with holes in the soles.

HUH! Alta thinks. Shoes don't do the running. Feet do. And she's got the fastest feet in Clarksville.

She challenges Charmaine to a race to the mailbox and back and beats her good.

Then Charmaine challenges her to a race to the corner and takes off before Alta can even think about it. And then Charmaine cuts her off and Alta trips, tearing another hole in her old shoes. Charmaine struts across the street, sashaying and making her braids bounce.

Alta limps home, feeling sorry for herself, but then she remembers how Wilma Rudolph had polio and wore a brace on her leg, but worked long and hard to become the fastest woman runner in the world.

Alta gets busy with her friends making a banner for the big parade for Wilma Rudolph, and when they're on their way to hold it up as she drives by, Charmaine comes along and offers to help them carry it.

"COME ON!" SAID CHARMAINE."

WE'LL DO IT LIKE WILMA'S RELAY. THREE PEOPLE RAN IT WITH HER!"

And when Wilma Rudolph rolls by in a convertible, with a big bunch of roses in her arms, she waves and gives a special smile to the two quickest kids in Clarksville, Tennessee, in Pat Zietlow Miller's
The Quickest Kid in Clarksville (Chronicle Books). Zietlow's two spunky characters come together in appreciation for their sport to celebrate their hometown heroine, portrayed with affectionate humor in full-bleed watercolors by artist Frank Morrison's engaging little aspirants for the fastest girl in town, helping young readers to wish them both to have their share of winning in their world. Zietlow's appendix includes an author's note which fills in the details of Wilma Rudolph's amazing Olympic career which inspired others to race to win."Sweet and inspiring," says Kirkus Reviews.

Family Reunion: Going Down Home with Daddy by Kelly Starling Lyons

On reunion morning, we rise before the sun. Daddy says there's nothing like going down home.

But Little Alan naps fitfully in the backseat as the car moves down the road into the early dawn. He is happy to see all the relatives, but at their anniversary celebration, all the children have to have something to share with the whole family.

And Alan's got nothing.

He's happy about being with his Great-Grandma and his grandparents and all the aunts and uncles and cousins. Granny is outside feeding her colorful hens when they arrive and gives him a great big hug. The big old house smells wonderful with everyone's home cooking and feels right with everyone's happy greetings. Still, all the cousins seem to have something special to share with the family. His dad points out things he remembers fondly to Alan--the old church, the place where he and his brother together played their trumpet and trombone, the family portraits where his eyes look back at him from their faces.

And when it's time for the wagon ride behind the big tractor, Alan is still worried. What will he say in front of everyone when it's his turn?

But as Dad drives them past the smokehouse and pond, he says something that makes Alan sit up tall.

"Cotton has been on this land a long time, just like us, my Pa used to say.

Look to your left. Look to your right.

Everything you see, Pa told us, is ours!"

And Alan knows what to do.

"I think and I collect treasures from our land, walking in Pa's and Granny's footsteps, in those of our people and Native people long before.

There's cotton for Granny's quilts that kept her children and grandchildren warm, a pecan from the trees Pa planted and his dad climbed, and some soil from their own land that goes on as far as they can see.

Kelly Starling Lyons' latest, Going Down Home with Daddy (Peachtree Books, 2019), lighted with the award-winning Daniel Minter's glowing paintings, done in deep earth tones of green and brown, celebrates the depth of family feeling and loyalty for the land that sustains them all. Minter's illustrations, decorated with elaborately-stylized guinea hens, climbing iconic okra pods, twining watermelon vines, and bolls bursting with ripe cotton, evoke the fullness of family connections and pride in a family reunion filled with love. Says Kirkus Reviews, "Imagery is presented in marvelous metaphors... Minter's acrylic-wash prints soar... A warm, loving, necessary reminder of the power in families coming together."

Share this one with the similarly-themed Cynthia Rylant's and Stephen Gammell's joyful Caldecott Honor book, The Relatives Came.

The Summons: The Bell Rang by James E. Ransome

Monday:The bell rings,
and no sun in the sky.
Daddy gathers wood.
Mama cooks.
We eat.

In the dawn a girl watches her family, Mama, Daddy, and brother Ben, go off to work with Master Tucker's other slaves, while she stays with the kids too young for field work with Miss Sarah Mae.

But on Wednesday morning something is different.

Ben surprises me
first with a kiss on the cheek,
then whispering
"Goodbye"
in my ear.

Ben has gone to the fields with his friends Joe and Little Sam. But at night they don't come home.

Master Tucker knows that they have "run," and the girl wakes on Thursday to the sound of the Overseer hitting Mama and Daddy. The girl hides.

Mama cries
all the way to the fields.

On Saturday they hear dogs barking and horses coming, and Joe and Little Sam, caught, are whipped, but there's no Ben.

Sunday We pray
Ben made it.
Free like Moses.
No more bells.

In stark but elegant free verse, James E. Ransome's The Bell Rang (Atheneum Books, 2019) tells the story, not of the runaway, but  from the witness of a little girl, a member of the slave family left behind, their sadness at the loss of a son, the fear for his safety, and the hope for his freedom. It's a powerful narrative, heightened by Ransome's stunning paintings which reveal much that cannot be said in mere words, however powerful. What is communicated are many truths about slavery's history and the wrenching human loss for families of those who dared to escape it, much as Ransome did in his 2017 award-winning story of young Harriet Tubman, Before She was Harriet (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books). and Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass (Paula Wiseman Books).

Less to Lose, More to Gain: A Sky Full of Stars by Linda Williams Jackson

My grandpa, Papa, used to say that gratitude was the key to happiness. If that was true, then I would never be happy.

With the chill of November upon us and all of Mr. Robinson's cotton picked clean in his fields, I was finally able to attend school. But instead of school that beautiful fall day, I was cooped up in Mrs. Robinson's kitchen. I hold Mrs. Robinson's fancy gold-rimmed plates over the empty bucket she had given me and scraped off leftovers. At least our hogs could be grateful for the slop.

The waters are anything but still in Stillwater, Mississippi. The black community is anguished over the brutal murder of Emmett Till and the continued shootings of local boys and men suspected of contacts with The NAACP, and most of the white community is both fearful and angry over the possible forced integration of their schools.

Rose's heart is filled with turmoil, too. Her grandmother, Ma Pearl, makes no secret of her resentment of Rose, left for her to raise by Rose's mother, and resentment of Aunt Ruth and her five children, abandoned by their no-good father and also living under her roof. Papa and Ma Pearl are allowed to live in their crowded, ramshackle house in the middle of Mr. Robinson's cotton fields in return for her work as housekeeper and Papa's management of the Robinson plantation, so when Ma Pearl finds Rose eating an abandoned ham sandwich on its way to the swill bucket, she slaps her hard.

"Quit ack'n like a triflin' nigga," Ma Pearl says. "I feed you at home."

But just as painful are the words she overhears from what she secretly calls the Cackling Church Ladies in the parlor.

My ears perked up when another voice came through clearly. "I wish the coloreds up north would realize how happy the coloreds are down here. What colored child would want to endure the same instructions as a white child anyway?" asked Mrs. Robinson. "I don't think they'd ever be able to keep up."

Rose knows she's smart, smart enough to keep up with her grade even if she's kept out during cotton planting and picking months.

But Rose has another reason to be torn. She knows she has her ticket out of the mess in Mississippi, a standing offer from her Aunt Belle to come and live with her and go to integrated schools in St. Louis. Last summer Rose was persuaded to stay in Stillwater by her best friend, fourteen-year-old Hallelujah Jenkins, son of the preacher and high school English teacher, who has sworn to stay in Mississippi and work for full rights for all of them. But now, in the weeks after Emmett Till's murderers are acquitted, black people are terrified at the random shootings of boys and grown men in their county, one shot just for putting the wrong amount of gas in a car. Even their county leader, Reverend Howard, is selling out and moving to California. Rose wonders what a seventh-grade black girl can possibly do to help. She's sick of going to church to hear Reverend Jenkins comparing the Israelites to black people in the South, promising that God will bring deliverance. Even Hallelujah confesses that he's "sick and tired of being sick and tired." Rose understands the choice faced by them all. To leave for their own good, to stay quiet and perhaps safe, or to act for all.

But then Hallelujah brings news of Rosa Parks and the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott, and he persuades Rose to join him and a few students who call themselves the Negro Youth Council to picket on the main street of Stillwater. Rose is terrified, but somehow she gets herself there, with the excuse of delivering two of Aunt Ruthie's cakes to be sold in her Aunt Bertha's shop, the only Negro-owned store in town.

"I know you're scared," Aunt Bertha whispered. "But that's what bravery is. Being scared, but doing the job anyway."

Miss Bertha sighed. "You young people have less to lose, but you have so much more to gain."

Linda Williams Jackson's second book, A Sky Full of Stars (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), tells a deeply American story, set far from the national stage, but true not only to its time, one torn by partisan, ethnic, and religious conflict, but like the one we all now live in, but still warmed by loving and dedicated family and brave leaders. Rose decides to call herself Rosa in honor of Rosa Parks and to stay in Mississippi, not letting hate or hardship chase her away from the place her heart calls home. After all there is so much to be gained.

Jackson's first-person narrative has the ring of truth, its voice that of its young protagonist, one whose world view is widening to see both the problems and the hope in her country and what she herself can do. This sequel to Jackson's 2017 Midnight Without a Moon (see review here.) is a powerful portrayal of one girl on the cusp of the times, "the best of times and the worst of times," where history is made by leaders, but also by the decisions of one young person at a time, the ones with the most to gain. Intimate and powerfully moving, an honest witness to its era and voice which speaks to our own, this middle reader novel is a perfect choice for classroom novel studies coordinated with American history.

Both Sides Now: Armstrong and Charlie by Steven B. Frank

"Whose idea was it to send me to a new school? You think the white kids want us to come?"

One thing about Mama, she will never tell me a lie. "Some maybe do. Some probably don't."

"Cause we're different?"

"Yeah. But you're also the same. All starting sixth grade, going through the same changes. You know, Armstrong, it's not just an opportunity to to change schools. It's to change ways, too. It doesn't always have to be Armstrong against the world." Mama said.

That's gonna depend, I think, if it's the world against Armstrong.

They call it "experimental busing," in the 1970s. That means that Armstrong and a few others are switching schools from South Central L.A. to Wonderland Elementary in the Hollywood Hills. Armstrong, the family youngest, with five sisters, doesn't take anything from anybody, and he plans to stay that way.

The Laurel Canyon kid, Charlie, is also the youngest in a family still mourning the death of his one-year-older brother Andy. And if that isn't enough change, he learns that many of his friends are suddenly part of white flight to other schools.

"So, they're racist?" Charlie asks his dad. "I wouldn't go that far, Charlie," Dad says. "They're doing what they think is right for their children."

"And you and Mom?"

"We're doing what we think is right for ours."

That's more than enough change for the risk-averse Charlie.

And as the first days of sixth-grade Armstrong the Rebel and Charlie the Rules Boy find themselves assigned to sit next to each other in the class of the dreaded nasty man with the beard, Mr. Mitchell, already on edge and edging toward conflict. It begins with Charlie lecturing Armstrong about taking a cut in line and ends with Armstrong throwing a handball right at Charlie's head. Armstrong denies any intent to injure, and Charlie follows playground rules not to tattle on him. The first fight is unsatisfying. Charlie has a big bruise, but Armstrong has admit to himself that the moral high ground goes to Charlie.

An arm-wrestling bout goes to Armstrong, when about to lose, he makes Charlie laugh at the crucial moment, and Charlie chokes as a fist fight threatens over a foul in basketball, but when Charlie's Ho-Hos start disappearing from his lunch sack, he suspects Armstrong and sets out to get real revenge. Using a syringe and needle Charlie injects hot sauce into a Ho Ho planted in his lunch as a lure to get even with Armstrong. But unexpectedly. Armstrong swipes the Ho Ho but decides at the last minute to swap it for Alex Levinson's Space Food Sticks. Alex squeals, literally, and the whole story comes out. Both boys are suspended by the principal.

It's a draw.

Armstrong and Charlie both find themselves doing some hard labor, Armstrong for an elderly neighbor, Mr. Khalil, and Charlie sentenced to work on Saturdays at his dad's warehouse, and as time goes by, the two sixth-graders come to an uneasy truce. And it is finally at their classes' week-long nature camp that the truce turns into an insightful friendship, in Steven A. Frank's forthcoming Armstrong and Charlie, as they find they are indeed the same as well as different.

Frank's storytelling is honest, funny, and even-handed, as the two share the grief of death and the stresses of early adolescence with increasing knowledge of themselves and the way the world works. The two boys provide the narration, told alternately in their own first-person accounts of their year, their first jobs and first kisses, their families, and their developing friendship. It's a great story, one that ends without a final ending, with a handshake that takes them forward, as sixth grade ends as the bus that brought them together has to leave, a frank look at a significant moment in time and in two lives.

At the End of the Line: Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena

C. J. STEPPED THROUGH THE CHURCH DOOR, SKIPPING DOWN THE STEPS.

THE OUTSIDE SMELLED LIKE FREEDOM.

It's Sunday, and church is finally over, but C. J. is not happy. For one thing, it's raining. For another, he sees his friends heading home in their nice dry cars to play for the rest of the day.

"HOW COME I GOTTA WAIT FOR THE BUS IN ALL THIS WET?" HE GRUMBLES.

"TREES GET THIRSTY, TOO," SAID NANA.

"HOW COME WE DON'T HAVE A CAR?" CONTINUES C.J.

But Nana's got an answer for that one, too. She points out that he's got a bus that breathes fire like a dragon, with Mr. Dennis the driver who can magically pull coins from his ears. C. J. pockets the coin, but he is still not mollified. Across the aisle from his seat he sees a boy listening to his iPod, and grumbles aloud that he sure wishes he had his own music.

"WHAT FOR?" SAYS NANA. "YOU GOT THE REAL THING SITTIN' ACROSS FROM YOU."

And the guy with the guitar sitting nearby obliges by serenading the passengers. C.J. closes his eyes to listen like the blind man behind him, and even the kids take out their earbuds to listen and feel that live music magic. Everyone, even Sunglass Man and Tattoo Guy, applauds.

Then they are there. The driver calls the last stop on the route.

C. J. and Nana get off and hurry through the rain and through a drab door where they find soggy homeless people waiting hopefully for them to serve dinner, and C. J. loses a little of his dark mood, seeing how grateful everyone is. Then it's time for the bus ride home.

Outside, Market Street is a sad sight, dingy gray walls, peeling paint. Still grumpy, C.J. wonders aloud ...

"HOW COME IT'S ALWAYS SO DIRTY OVER HERE?"

"SOMETIMES, WHEN YOU'RE SURROUNDED BY DIRT, C. J." NANA SAYS, "YOU'RE A BETTER WITNESS FOR WHAT'S BEAUTIFUL."

And as if the sky heard Nana, C.J. looks up to see a bright rainbow over Market Street, in Matt De La Pena's 2016 Newbery Award-winning Last Stop on Market Street (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2015). From his grandmother's gentle premise that poor in the pocketbook is not the same as poor in spirit, C. J.'s eyes are opened to the good around him.

Christian Robinson's simple, stylized illustrations, a variety of human figures shown mostly in profile, are balanced by the myriad of shapes and colors in the urban scene surrounding them, De La Pena's book swept the awards for the year, being named a 2016 Caldecott Honor Book, the 2016 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, becoming a New York Times best seller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of 2015, and The Huffington Post's Best Overall Picture Book of 2015. And readers will agree with C.J as he says as he boards the bus, "I'm glad we came."

Don't Forget to Write! Letters to Missy Violet by Barbara Hathaway

Uh-oh! Mama found out I wrote to Missy Violet. Mama told Papa she was going to whup me for being so fast and nosin' in grown folks' business. I think Papa was tickled, but Mama didn't think it was funny at all!

"Viney Eleanor, didn't I tell you not to go worryin' Missy Violet with letters and things while she's down in Tallahassee? I can't believe that gal went behind my back and wrote that letter!" Mama kept saying. "I didn't know that child had such Judas ways!"

Mama never calls me Viney Eleanor unless she's real mad. She made me go out in the yard and get her a switch.

But Missy Violet told her to be sure and write, and besides, there's all these people who need Missy Violet to make them better, and with her down in Tallahassee with her sick brother, there's nobody but Viney, her "best helper girl" in Richmond County to take care of it all. First off, there's Miss Roula, who can't find the big jar of boneset medicine Missy Violet made up before she left, wondering around the graveyard and mumbling in her bathrobe. There's Viney's big brother Claude, getting more sullen and withdrawn every day, saying he's going to have to kill him some white people, and there's daddy's hurt foot that he won't stay off of, and cousin Charles who's always acting biggity and getting in trouble, and all the rest, and Viney's just got to write to Missy Violet and find out what to do for them all. After all, she spent all summer helping Missy Violet "catch babies," saving Teeny William with her special eyedropper and formula, and learning all about medicinal plants, and she is the only helper girl around.

Viney never gets that switching, as even Mama,determined to raise her right, softens as she reads Missy Violet's wise reply, and as the school year goes on, Viney needs all the wisdom she can get from her mentor. There's mean Miss Battle, her teacher, who takes over for sweet Miss Glover who loves her class but gets "snapped up" by a handsome man from out of the county. But then Missy Violet writes to tell her about her friend, Irene Battle, born a slave but dedicating her life to making sure even the sharecropper's children stay in school and get some education.

Then there's the Klan, who catch Viney and Charles spying on them in the woods, and a deformed baby whose mother doesn't have to courage to take care of her, There's Papa, laid off and threatening to move the whole family up North, and folks all around who need something, and Viney can't wait for Missy Violet to come back and take care of things. Viney needs her help to find out what she's supposed to do about it all.

"You know, the world is changing all the time and there is a place for colored
in every trade," Missy Violet writes back.

And in Barbara Hathaway's second novel about Viney, the forthcoming Letters to Missy Violet (Houghton Mifflin, 2012), we do see that world changing through the eyes of Viney Eleanor, who comes to see that there's a place for her in that world that's coming, even a nursing school for colored right up there in the North, and if she learns everything Miss Battle can teach, she knows she's going to ready to go there soon.

Told chiefly as an epistolary novel, with letters from Viney, Charles, and Mama and replies from Miss Violet, Hathaway's beautiful narrative, based on her grandmother's stories, brings her characters to life in the world of 1930's rural Georgia. There are plenty of childhood adventures--the capture by the Ku Klux Klan and unexpected release by a Klansman's little son and a scary escapade in which Charles dares the kids to climb in through the church window and take a peek inside the casket of a dead Chicago gangster brought back to be buried. There are beautiful episodes--of big, slow Ruby Dean, held back with the little kids, whom Miss Battle finds a way to teach-- and of the essay contest in which Viney gets an A and even Charles buckles down to pass, and many small victories in the life of a family and community that despite their roots in that now faraway time and place, are universal to children everywhere.

Although Letters to Missy Violet successfully stands alone, it is best read in tandem with the award-winning Missy Violet and Me as one warm and thoughtful narrative for middle readers.