The Last House on the Street

I gave Diane Chamberlain's The Last House on the Street a 5-star rating on Goodreads. It was actually more like a 4.5 that I rounded up to 5. But be warned, this is not a book for everyone.

In 2010, Kayla and her husband, Jackson, build their dream home at the end of a street in a brand new development in Round Hill, North Carolina. Jackson dies in a tragic accident - at the house - before they can move in. And for some reason, discouragement about moving into the house is coming from all different places.

In 1965, Ellie Hockley, a 20-year old from Round Hill, North Carolina, volunteers to work for the summer educating "Negroes" about registering for the vote, in anticipation of the Voting Rights Act. She was part of a program that was put together for students from the North and out west to canvas in rural Black areas in the south. Ellie, as a southerner, was not really who they wanted in the program. Her family and friends are not at all happy that she feels the need to volunteer. She has her reasons and feels that she has to do something to help.

The novel is written in alternating storylines. Kayla's story and Ellie's story. Most of the early part of the novel I was waiting for the two stories to intersect, to help me make sense of Kayla's story.

I don't want to give too much of the story away, so I won't. But living in the south for the past twelve years, I found both the 1965 and 2010 stories hauntingly realistic. They are both stories about blatant racism, the KKK, divisions within the community. It's about new developments in rural areas. It's about relationships - both family and friends - and how far they can be stretched.
 

The Nickel Boys

 

I don't even know where to begin with writing about Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys. What a powerful read.

I read Whitehead's previous novel, The Underground Railroad, back in July of this year. I enjoyed that one, although am still not sure how I feel about some of the fantastical aspects of the novel.

The Nickel Boys is different. It's based on the true story of The Dozier School for Boys, a boys' reform school in northern Florida that was in existence for over 100 years. The two things that struck me most about  this book were my familiarity with the discovery for unmarked graves of students on school property in 2011, the year after I moved to Florida. The other thing that brought me to pause was following the Derek Chauvin murder trial, for the killing of George Floyd last May, at the same time.

Elwood Curtis lived with his grandmother in Tallahassee, Florida in the early 1960s. He was an inquisitive boy and tried to stick to the straight and narrow. He received an album of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches which became a treasured possession. In high school, he got involved with the Civil Rights movement. He develops a relationship with one of his teachers who makes it possible for Elwood to attend a black college on the outskirts of Tallahassee while  he's still in his senior year of high school. Because the college is  on the outskirts of  town, Elwood needs to hitchhike to get to the college. He gets picked up by a Packard which turns out to be a stolen car. As a punishment for "his crime," Elwood is sent to The Nickel Academy.

The Nickel Academy is open to both black and white boys, but it is very much segregated. We are led to believe that the experiences of the white boys versus that of the black boys is very different. Elwood, as a black "student," gets punished early on and winds up in the hospital. After that, he's a bit more careful. Until he decides that he needs to take a stand against the injustices against others that he observes during his time at the reform school. 

Living in Florida has been eye opening to me. I was raised in NYC and while I'm sure everyone was not treated equally or fairly, the racism wasn't as blatant as it is in the south. In 2011 when the story of The Dozier School broke, I had a hard time something so horrible could be happening "in this day and age" so close to where I was living. One of the characters in the novel, Millie, was raised in NYC and she has a hard time coming to terms with what "Elwood" has experienced.

This week, though, listening to the Derek Chauvin murder trial, I can't help but wonder about the lack of progress we, as a nation, have made over the past 60 years in terms of civil rights. We haven't come far at all. We have a very long way to go.

I would highly recommend  this griping, spare, raw novel.

HANK

I received a copy of the historical fiction HANK from a goodreads.com giveaway in the hopes that I would give it a favorable review. I really wanted to like the book. The premise sounded really good.

Thirteen-year-old Hank Kemp is four-feet-nine inches and ninety-seven pounds of pure intelligence. Despite growing up in a poverty-stricken African American community in the 1950s South, Hank still dares to dream. Although he has been abandoned by his drifter father, his hardworking mother provides an endless supply of unconditional love and support.

Shortly after he wins the spelling bee at his junior high, Hank's promising world shatters when his mother dies in a fire. Soon, his mother's friend, Lillie, takes Hank in and begins raising him as one of her own. While Hank struggles through his grief and rekindles his strong determination to succeed in life, he is helped along the way by a kindly teacher, an attorney, and the Spoorville community as they band together to keep Hank out of foster care. As his father reenters his life and Hank's journey propels him toward high school graduation and an exciting future, he learns that success is better achieved with help from those able to see what he can be.

In this inspiring coming-of-age story, a young African American growing up in the fifties America must carve his own path in life after his mother dies, with assistance from a caring community.  

My hopes and expectations were not met. First of all, I'm not 100% sure if this book was meant to be a middle grade historical fiction novel or if it was written for an older audience. My review is based on the assumption that this was a book meant to be grade by fifth graders learning about the Civil Rights Movement.

My biggest disappointment was the lack of historical context in the novel. There were passing references to historical events like school integration, the celebration of Juneteenth, the transition from party lines to dial-direct telephones. As an adult familiar with what was being referenced, I got it. I don't believe that a child would walk away knowing anything more about the south during the 1950s by reading this book other than the fact that black children in the 1950s needed to walk to school.

I don't think a child would understand the mentions of welfare or the system. As an adult, I want to know why Aunt Lillie who was relatively young with older children hadn't looked for a job prior to being told that she couldn't be a foster parent to Hank while she was collecting welfare.

There is little evidence of Hank's grief over the loss of his mother. A few times, Lillie seems as though she misses Hank's mother, Mary. This is another aspect of the story that would have benefitted from being much more fleshed out. The characters of Hank and Ruth Ann were the most developed of all the characters, but I really wanted to know them better. If I didn't know that Lillie was in her late 30s, I would have thought she was in her 60s.

After Ruth Ann moves, Mrs. Bennett (Lillie) misses her because she helped with housework. Hank and Billy Ray miss her because she used to cook for them. We are told repeatedly what a close knit family they are. Missing someone solely because of the chores that aren't getting done makes no sense.

Peck includes lots of little details that serve as distractions and don't add anything to the story. An example of this is when a different person speaks at the high school graduation than the one that was originally scheduled to speak and was listed in the program. That didn't serve to move the story ahead at all.

And finally, the paperback edition that I read was riddled with typos and capitalization and usage errors.

I think that the story of Harold Andrew Nelson Kemp Bennett held a lot of promise. The book I read would be a great starting point for his story but wasn't worthy as a finished product. I love children's historical fiction and I was hoping to find an appropriate novel about life in the south in the 1950s to pass along to my granddaughter who will be in fifth grade this coming fall. I won't be passing it on.

If Claudette A. Peck writes another historical fiction novel based on her own younger years, I would love to be a critique partner prior to publication.