Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall
Starla Claudelle, a white girl, lives in Mississippi with her not so nice grandmother, Maime. Her father works on an oil rig, only making it home every few months. Lucinda, her mother has gone to Nashville to become a star. At nine years old, Starla feels that no one loves her.
Starla is a redhead and has a temper to match. So when she punches the school bully, Maime grounds her just in time for the Fourth of July fireworks display. When she's discovered outside the confines of her bedroom, she decides to head to Nashville in search of her mother. Eula, a colored woman, picks up the pint sized hitchhiker along the side of the road.
The year is 1963 and the civil rights movement is beginning to take shape in the deep south. Their journey together shows the bad and the ugly of this time in America. But it also shows that people can be kind and caring while staring adversity in the face.
What I loved about Whistling Past the Graveyard is the development of the rich array of characters. Starla is a child and we see the story through her eyes. Eula shows us what a life of abuse means for a colored woman in a white world. Both of them learn about themselves growing through the course of the story. That is not always easy for an author to accomplish and the way it played out in Whistling Past the Graveyard warmed my heart.
Starla Claudelle, a white girl, lives in Mississippi with her not so nice grandmother, Maime. Her father works on an oil rig, only making it home every few months. Lucinda, her mother has gone to Nashville to become a star. At nine years old, Starla feels that no one loves her.
Starla is a redhead and has a temper to match. So when she punches the school bully, Maime grounds her just in time for the Fourth of July fireworks display. When she's discovered outside the confines of her bedroom, she decides to head to Nashville in search of her mother. Eula, a colored woman, picks up the pint sized hitchhiker along the side of the road.
The year is 1963 and the civil rights movement is beginning to take shape in the deep south. Their journey together shows the bad and the ugly of this time in America. But it also shows that people can be kind and caring while staring adversity in the face.
What I loved about Whistling Past the Graveyard is the development of the rich array of characters. Starla is a child and we see the story through her eyes. Eula shows us what a life of abuse means for a colored woman in a white world. Both of them learn about themselves growing through the course of the story. That is not always easy for an author to accomplish and the way it played out in Whistling Past the Graveyard warmed my heart.
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