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Overview
Louise Collins was pretty certain that nothing all that exciting would happen in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, where she lived with her mother in their boarding house, Rooms on Desire. Every day was almost the same: serve cranky Mr. Landroux his meals in bed, visit Antoine's Pick-a-Chick with Charlotte, and wear out the pages of her favorite novels by reading them over and over. But when desegregation begins, Louise is pulled out of school and her mother joins the Cheerleaders, a group of local women who gather every morning to heckle six-year-old Ruby Bridges, William Frantz Elementary's first African-American student.
Then one day a Chevy Bel Air with a New York license plate pulls up to the house and out steps Morgan Miller, a man with a mysterious past. For the first time, Louise feels as if someone cares about what she thinks. But when the reason for Morgan's visit comes to light, everything Louise thinks she knows about her mother, her world, and herself changes, abruptly and irrevocably.
Synopsis
Louise Collins was pretty certain that nothing all that exciting would happen in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, where she lived with her mother in their boarding house, Rooms on Desire. Every day was almost the same: serve cranky Mr. Landroux his meals in bed, visit Antoine's Pick-a-Chick with Charlotte, and wear out the pages of her favorite novels by reading them over and over. But when desegregation begins, Louise is pulled out of school and her mother joins the Cheerleaders, a group of local women who gather every morning to heckle six-year-old Ruby Bridges, William Frantz Elementary's first African-American student.
Then one day a Chevy Bel Air with a New York license plate pulls up to the house and out steps Morgan Miller, a man with a mysterious past. For the first time, Louise feels as if someone cares about what she thinks. But when the reason for Morgan's visit comes to light, everything Louise thinks she knows about her mother, her world, and herself changes, abruptly and irrevocably.
Publishers Weekly
Set in 1960, Sharenow's debut novel begins just after the Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional and Ruby Bridges became the first black student to attend William J. Frantz Elementary in New Orleans's Ninth Ward. Louise Collins is an overworked, 13-year-old loner who helps her alcoholic mother run a Ninth Ward rooming house, Rooms on Desire. After her mother pulls her out of school to protest integration, Louise has more time to assist with the boarders. (Louise notes that "my first reaction to the news that William Frantz was to be integrated was to wonder why the Negro kids wanted to go to such a crummy school.") Additionally, Louise's mother joins The Cheerleaders, a group of women who line up at the entrance of the school every morning and verbally harass first-grader Ruby, screaming racial epithets and even threatening her life. Into this tumultuous environment comes Morgan Miller, an attractive, educated book editor who resides in New York City but was raised in New Orleans. Miller has come to make peace with his brother, but he stirs up romantic feelings in both Louise and her mother and gets them to slowly reconsider the racial attitudes they've heretofore accepted. Through inquisitive Louise's perspective, readers get a wrenching look at the era's turmoil and pervasive racism. As secrets about Louise's family are revealed and Miller's attitudes attract the attention of local Klan members, teens should remain riveted right through the devastating conclusion to Sharenow's promising work of historical fiction. Ages 12-up. (May)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
Set in 1960, Sharenow's debut novel begins just after the Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional and Ruby Bridges became the first black student to attend William J. Frantz Elementary in New Orleans's Ninth Ward. Louise Collins is an overworked, 13-year-old loner who helps her alcoholic mother run a Ninth Ward rooming house, Rooms on Desire. After her mother pulls her out of school to protest integration, Louise has more time to assist with the boarders. (Louise notes that "my first reaction to the news that William Frantz was to be integrated was to wonder why the Negro kids wanted to go to such a crummy school.") Additionally, Louise's mother joins The Cheerleaders, a group of women who line up at the entrance of the school every morning and verbally harass first-grader Ruby, screaming racial epithets and even threatening her life. Into this tumultuous environment comes Morgan Miller, an attractive, educated book editor who resides in New York City but was raised in New Orleans. Miller has come to make peace with his brother, but he stirs up romantic feelings in both Louise and her mother and gets them to slowly reconsider the racial attitudes they've heretofore accepted. Through inquisitive Louise's perspective, readers get a wrenching look at the era's turmoil and pervasive racism. As secrets about Louise's family are revealed and Miller's attitudes attract the attention of local Klan members, teens should remain riveted right through the devastating conclusion to Sharenow's promising work of historical fiction. Ages 12-up. (May)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationKLIATT -
This book offers a dose of history from the Civil Rights Era when an African American first grader integrated a Louisiana elementary school. A group of women, called "the cheerleaders," stood outside the school each morning and shouted epithets and hurled rotten tomatoes at the little girl and the National Guard. Today, these women are demonized as so twisted by hate they lost all humanity. John Steinbeck, visiting the scene in 1960, called them "crazy." Louise Collins, 11 years old and the daughter of one of these "cheerleaders," is the protagonist. Her single mother runs a boarding house in the Ninth Ward, a poor section of town. She makes ends meet by engaging in liaisons with men in her neighborhood. Every morning, she fulfills her cheerleading duties, then spends the afternoon drinking lime juleps until she passes out. She has pulled Louise out of school because of the integration issue but somehow Louise now does all the nasty duties associated with running a boarding house, including changing the bedpan of an amputee. Then one day Mr. Morgan Miller takes a room and both Louise and her mother fall in love with his courtly ways. Unfortunately, he's lived in the North too long and incurs neighborhood wrath by disapproving of the cheerleading squad. The violence that follows jars both Louise's and her mother's sensibilities. The novel is interesting, perhaps even troubling, in that the author seems to defend the actions of the cheerleaders as part of the culture of the times. It will take some mature thinking and discussion for young readers to wend their way through this thicket of conflicting emotions.School Library Journal
Gr 8-10
This powerfully written first novel is a coming-of-age story framed by a historical event. Thirteen-year-old Louise thinks that her life simply couldn't be any more boring. The year is 1960, and her mother has yanked her out of school because an African-American child, Ruby Bridges, has been enrolled in first grade. So Louise has nothing to do except tons of chores in her mother's run-down New Orleans boardinghouse, while Pauline drinks herself into a stupor every afternoon. She spends her mornings with the "Cheerleaders," the local women who gather to heckle Ruby and shout racial epithets at her as she enters the school. One day, a handsome man steps out of a late-model Chevy Bel Air and rents a room. Louise and her mother are both intrigued, and eventually learn that Morgan Miller, who has supposedly come down from New York to visit family, has ties to The Daily Worker . Through conversations with Morgan and firsthand observations, Louise begins to wonder about the morality of the Cheerleaders' activities. After Pauline is a victim of rape and several tragic episodes play out, the woman does something unexpected, and Louise starts to look at her from a different point of view. To most young readers, 1960 is nearly ancient history, yet the prejudice that Louise views in the Ninth Ward is still part of life today, albeit better hidden.
—Susan RileyCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.