Overview
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. Francie is a 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book.
When the sixteen-year-old boy whom she tutors in reading is accused of attempting to murder a white man, Francie gets herself in serious trouble for her efforts at friendship.
Synopsis
The Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel, set in the 1940s segregated South, of a girl whose act of moral courage endangers her family.
Horn Book
(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.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"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...Readers will cheer Francie and her brave mother." —The Horn Book "Set sometime during the Truman administration, this portrait of a 12-year-old black girl in Alabama is a model of economy. Karen English compresses worlds of feeling and experience into every sequence of her first novel, offering readers not just a good diversion but an opportunity to try on someone else's skin." — The New York Times Book Review"Francie's smooth-flowing, well-paced narration is gently assisted by just the right touch of the vernacular. Characterization is evenhanded and believable, while place and time envelop readers. The message that one must rise out of oppression and actively seek a better life is a good one." —Starred, School Library Journal
"A keenly perceptive and gutsy heroine." —Starred, Publishers Weekly
NY Times Book Review
Set sometime during the Truman administration, this portrait of a 12-year-old black girl in Alabama is a model of economy . . .School Library Journal
Francie's smooth-flowing, well-paced narration is gently assisted by just the right touch of the vernacular.Horn Book
(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.