Yankee Girl by Mary Ann Rodman
WAW 2006 Award Nominee (Gr. 6-8)
December 29, 2006
Alice Ann's family moves from Chicago, Illinois, to Mississippi
in 1964. Her dad is an FBI agent and he has been sent to protect
the black people who want to register to vote. Also, this is the
first year for integration or "race mixing," as it is called in the
South. That means black children will be going to the same schools
as white children. As a newcomer, Alice Ann desperately wants to
fit in with the kids in her new sixth grade class, but they don't
seem to like her very much. She also tries to be friendly with the
new black student, but that doesn't work out very well either. In
the end, Alice must find the strength to stand up for what is
right.
Yankee Girl is an example of historical fiction, whose words and story allow the reader to see and feel the beginnings of school integration in Mississippi from several character viewpoints -- from the narrator who is "the outsider," from the neighbors and classmates who have always lived there and have definite opinions about "others," and from the quietly suffering outcast. The background of the story is pulled from the author's personal childhood experience of moving from up North to down South, where her own father was an FBI agent and assigned to the area to support the efforts of the civil rights movement.
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