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Summary
Summary
A distinctive new voice in children's fiction Francie lives with her mother and younger brother, Prez, in rural Alabama, where all three work and wait. Francie's father is trying to get settled in Chicago so he can move his family up North.Unfortunately, he's made promises he hasn't kept, and Francie painfully learns that her dreams of starting junior high school in an integrated urban classroom will go unfulfilled. Amid the day-to-day grind of working odd jobs for wealthy white folks on the other side of town, Francie becomes involved in helping a framed young black man to escape arrest - a brave gesture, but one that puts the entire black community in danger. In this vivid portrait of a girl in the pre - Civil Rights era South, first-time novelist Karen English completes Francie's world using lively vernacular and a wide array of flesh-and-blood characters.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A keenly perceptive and gutsy heroine narrates this debut novel set in segregated 1940s Alabama. Francie, her mama and brother, Prez (named for FDR), patiently await word from her father, who has been gone for more than a year, to join him in Chicago where he works as a Pullman porter. Francie and her mother continue to make ends meet while bravely fending off the intimations from town gossips that their dream of reuniting their family may not come true. English (Just Right Stew) carefully and subtly plants the seeds for several dramatic scenes in the novel. For instance, Francie notices Holly, from a rich white family whom she and Mama work for, stealing a tube of lipstick; in a later chapter, when the shopkeeper accuses Francie of stealing a book she brought into the store with her, Holly stacks the evidence against Francie. The author effectively builds the rebellious streak in the heroine until Francie cleverly and humorously exacts revenge on the haughty Holly. English thus sets the stage for the moment when Francie comes to the aid of an older boy whom she tutored in reading and who is falsely accused of assaulting his white employer. These winning characters credibly surmount obstacles as a matter of course. In a triumphant and surprising ending, English pointedly leaves a few loose ends, but readers will come away knowing that Francie's spirit and intelligence will get her family through. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) Almost thirteen-year-old Francie finds it difficult to tolerate the inequities that her time, place, and race impose on her, and she speaks up for herself in scenes that will bring Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to mind. From the first sentence, straightforward Francie owns up to her transgressions but doesn't let others off easily (""I did something to that cat, I admit it. But that cat did something to me first""). It helps that Francie and her mother and younger brother believe that their days in rural Alabama in the early 1950s will soon be behind them: their father has promised to send for them when his job as a Pullman porter in Chicago permits it. In the meantime, Francie suffers constant injustices when she accompanies her mother at her domestic jobs for white folks; when her overworked, frustrated mother lashes out against her; when she is falsely accused of lying and stealing in the white-owned drugstore. But at school, book-loving Francie shines, and she is called on to teach sixteen-year-old Jesse Pruit to read. Despite Jesse's lack of schooling, he dreams of a place called California on the Pacific Ocean: ""I'ma go there one day-where they grow oranges on trees."" He struggles to master even the elementary alphabet with Francie's help; her help becomes far more vital-and dangerous-when Jesse is accused of the attempted murder of a white man and hides out to escape capture. Readers will cheer Francie and her brave mother, from whom she inherits her rare and honest gutsiness. English never makes things easy for this resilient household and the secondary characters whom she also brings to life. When the long-awaited letter finally arrives, it's not from Daddy; it's from Jesse: ""just a picture postcard. Of an orange grove."" Bravo. s.p.b. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-10. Reminiscent of Mildred Taylor's novels, this story is told in the voice of a poor young girl in segregated Alabama, who suffers bigotry and abuse and who dreams of escape to the cities of the North. Twelve-year-old Francie's dad has been in Chicago a long time, but he still hasn't sent for his family to join him. Francie is the star pupil in the one-room schoolhouse for black children, and her kind teacher encourages her love of reading. Francie also has to work long hours helping her mother clean, cook, and do laundry for white people. Exhausted by her backbreaking work, Mama is sometimes rough with the daughter she loves, especially when Francie can't hold her seething anger at the racism in daily life. The scenes of prejudice are disturbing: in one painful episode, Francie is falsely accused of shoplifting; in another, she has to wait on arrogant white kids at a party. But English shows Francie maintaining her sense of self because she's smart and strong. There's an undeveloped subplot about a teenage boy whom Francie hides from white violence, but the central drama is about Francie and her mother, who are drawn with aching realism. --Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-The soft-spoken voice of Francie, a 12-year-old African-American girl, belies her fierce determination to leave Alabama and its racial prejudice in this Coretta Scott King Honor book by Karen English (Farrar, 1999). The narrator, Sisi Aisha Johnson, gives Francie a musical, lilting voice that draws listeners into this quiet story. Hearing her thoughts and responses as she tackles the drudgery of doing housework for white people introduces us to her subtle and humorous ways of dealing with racial slurs and outright discrimination. Johnson builds on her theatre experience in Flyin' West, a historical play about African Americans during the post Civil War era, with this audiobook. While many of the voices are similar in cadence and rhythm, there are finely honed differences keeping them distinct. For instance, Johnson slows the cadence but raises the pitch of speech for Prez, Francie's younger brother. Through the sound of his voice his innocence is projected, and listeners find him endearing. Jesse, the outcast teenager who Francie befriends, speaks even more slowly and carries a deeper vocal tone. Johnson brings him alive, and listeners can easily empathize with this honest, undereducated young man. All the while the narrator maintains a vocal consistency with all her characters that brings a cohesiveness to the story. Using this tape to augment a language arts lesson that integrates civil rights issues can bring a direct sensitivity for listeners regarding discrimination, especially the scene where Francie is serving hors d'ouvres to her white peers. This is a beautifully narrated book which carries similar intensity of feeling as Kimberly Holt's My Louisiana Sky (Bantam, 1999). All libraries would do well to include this in their collections.-Tina Hudak, St. Bernard's School, Riverdale, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In pre-Civil Rights rural Alabama, Francie goes to school and works, helping her mother as a maid for white families in town. Her father has gone to Chicago to find work and has promised to send for them, but he keeps postponing it. Meanwhile, Jesse, a boy whom she has tutored in school, is unjustly accused of attacking a white man, and Francie's efforts to help him endanger her family and the other families around her. Francie's life is portrayed as one of cruel poverty, and her patient, stalwart mother is devastated when the latest letter from her father disappoints them yet again. After the family's long, agonizing wait, repeatedly emphasized, it's quite a surprise'to readers, too'when her mother suddenly comes up with the money, not only to move the whole family to Chicago, but to buy them new clothes before they leave. This inexplicable ending mars an otherwise compelling story about the sheer exhaustion, fear, and frustration suffered by many poor African-Americans in the rural south. (Fiction. 10-12)
Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Waiting for the day her Pullman porter father will send for the family, Francie bides her time in her small-minded Alabama town. An absorbing picture of the past, populated with courageous characters pursuing a dream. (Sept.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.