Two books about growing up in the segregated South

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

With a three day Easter weekend ahead of me, it was nice to have a chance to finish The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had this morning. I have passed by this book several times in our school library, and I think the cover design may have had something to do with it. We have the copy with the bottom cover design...something about the super-large type kind of bugged me. I much prefer the other design. But, I picked it up last week because I'm collecting social action titles for our sixth graders, and I'm really glad I did.

In the story, Dit is a white boy who is one of 10 children living in Alabama in the 1910s. His life becomes interesting when the new postmaster arrives with his family from Boston. The townspeople are shocked to learn that the Walkers are black. Emma is about Dit's age, and very well educated. and after a rough start, they become very good friends. They spend the summer together playing baseball and skipping stones. Once school starts, their relationship becomes complicated as they each attend their segregated schools. Dit is teased and bullied for being friends with a colored girl. And brainy Emma is not being challenged enough in her own school.

I won't reveal too much more about the story and the frightening violence that ensues, but this book is really thought-provoking. The short chapters and action-packed plot will make it really hard for your reader to put this book down. By the end of this book, I was seriously choked up. I challenge young readers not to feel the same.

Kristin Levine also wrote The Lions of Little Rock, another great book about living in the segregated South. I just took a peek at her website, and learned she has another book out called The Paper Cowboy. This book sounds just as amazing as her first two.

Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper

This book is equally powerful. Our school did it as a book club book last year, and we had a really thoughtful discussion about the story. Sharon Draper based the book on the life of her grandmother Estelle, who used to write by starlight. I just learned there's also a well-known jazz song titled Stella by Starlight, but it is not related to this story. In the book, Stella lives in depression-era segregated south in Bumblebee, North Carolina. There are nice people in town and others that are not so nice, and Stella lives a fairly peaceful existence until the Ku Klux Klan shows up and turns her community upside-down. Learn what Stella does to fight small minded prejudice. Sharon Draper also wrote the terrific book, Out of My Mind.