Author: Robin Talley
Book Link

This book was hard to read.

I don’t mean it in a high-language/made up vernacular that you’d find in a David Foster Wallace book (aka challenging fiction), but the content itself.

Even though it’s meant for a younger audience, I had to keep putting it down because the events in the book angered me.

It’s a book about desegregation in Virginia and the first 12 black students to integrate into a white school. The town is made up, as are the schools and the characters, but the events are based off real stories.

The author did an incredible job of making the experience real. You felt the emotions of the characters and struggled alongside each of them.

Even though you know it’s fiction, you’re still upset to read what’s happening. You can picture every scene happening and put real faces to each person mentioned… even the background characters.

This is going into my classroom library with a high recommendation for my students to read it. As a teacher, I couldn’t teach this lesson any more powerful than what Talley has written.