When I first saw the cover of this book, I thought what a wretched, institutional image. Definitely one of those books that will make it on all kinds of required reading lists, but few kids will pick up on their own. This book will have to be sold one book at a time by booksellers, teachers and librarians, but the effort will be so worth it. Shana Burg has written a stunning debut novel, one that will have young readers on the edge of their seats and older readers thinking back to the first time they read Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.
The Civil Rights Movement is about to take hold in Kuckachoo, Mississippi thanks to Addie Ann Picket and the garden Old Man Adams bequeaths to all the white and Negro people of his community. The garden will help feed all Kuckachookians and make the colored folk not quite so dependent on Mr. Mudge's store. When it comes time to harvest the garden, though, someone has ruined the crop by planting butter beans over everything else. Typical of a small southern town in 1963, a colored man, Addie Ann's Uncle Bump, is blamed, and it is up to Addie Ann and a few good souls to set what things they can right.
This novel could have easily bored the reader with too many historical details. It could have easily become a woe-is-me novel for Addie Ann and her family, but thanks to brilliant pacing, a scared, but courageous heroine, and a hopeful, but realistic ending, it instead becomes a novel worthy of the Newbery.
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