Did you or your grandparents grow up in the Civil Rights era of the 1950s?
Carol Baldwin has written a historical fiction set in Charlotte, NC. Set in the 1950s, the story is very relatable to me because I am a baby boomer from that era. It was the time of the Civil Rights movement in the South. So much was unspoken, sometimes because of fear, sometimes to keep a civil conversation among family, often because of cultural traditions, and sometimes because of skeletons in closets. This book will help those who did not live through the civil rights era better understand the time from the point of view of a young teenage girl who wants to go to college to become a journalist.
Kate Dinsmore, a teen born and raised on a tobacco farm near Tabor City, NC. wants to go to college. She earns money helping in a hardware store in town where her dad is employed. Her dream to be a journalist was not a job for women at that time. The story opens with Kate working in the store when a Negro family (the historical term used in Mrs. Baldwin’s book as well as the term colored, also historically correct) comes in to make a purchase. Her Papaw enters to announce his excitement about the KKK parade that is about to begin. When he sees the family shopping in a white owned store, he goes off on another tangent, scaring the lady and her children. The tension is already set to make this book a page-turner.
Kate’s scheme throughout the story is to get a college education, but her family can’t afford to pay her way. So her half-truths begin. She asked to go live with her grandparents in Charlotte, who are estranged from her dad but who also have the money to send her to college.
The book is filled with half-truths that cover so much of all our lives, balancing the political, traditional, and cultural norms of families who disagree. Her dad and her Papaw disagree on the rights of all people to live with equal opportunities. This disagreement wasn’t just at the level of the working class, but it permeated into the upper-class society of Charlotte.
Kate finds herself entangled in another half-truth, pretending to be someone on the outside that she knows she is not. She tries to please too many people for so many reasons that her life becomes filled with half-truths that harm others and herself.
She brought two of her pets, Josie the goat and Baccy her dog, to Charlotte. They are the comic relief in the story, but also play an integral part in helping her discover who she is. Her grandmother’s maid wants to work in the science field, but college for a black girl is even more impossible than college for a poor white girl. Kate’s goat contracted ringworm. Grandmother’s maid, Lillian, wants to help the goat so she can win a science fair project. Together, Kate and Lillian sneak into her dad’s funeral home at night for chemicals to help the goat. They overhear an NAACP meeting. The city plans to move the cemetery from Lillian’s church to another location so the city can use the land.
But there is yet more for these two girls to discover. The girls discover a photo in the attic that contains both Kate and Lillian’s families. When Lillian is required to take Kate shopping, the clerk mistakes Lillian for the shopper instead of Kate, the country girl with the rich grandmother. Lillian could be mistaken for white. Lillian must serve at a luncheon for Kate, where Kate refers to her as the help. She and Lillian already know the truth, but this slight causes a rift in their relationship that may be unfixable.
Mrs. Baldwin’s publisher, Jen Lowery, has created a reader’s guide that I’m sure teens will find helpful. You can access the guide here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XxbEf-DzZtZID48IgBNxh1Dhw-Pm5MCIQldS07Y3sJU/copy
Gail Cartee gives this book 5 stars for engaging and informative historical fiction. Follow us for new book news, free resources, parenting tips, and encouragement! #Carol Baldwin, #ChristianChildrensAuthorsBlog, #ChristianHomeschool