A review by bookladykd
The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA by Brenda Woods

2.0

Other reviewers seem to have really liked this book, but it was a real disappointment for me. I know the message (Blacks in the post WWII South were treated like crap, in case you're wondering what that is) is important, but I found this book to be horribly cliched and pedantic. Stock characters (the clueless white boy on the verge of manhood, the even more clueless yet amusing friend, the wise and noble Black man, the completely reprehensible overtly racist low-class white man... I could go in and on) fill the pages. Everybody talks like a cross between The Andy Griffith Show and Little Rascals, golly gee willikers! It finally started to gain some depth in the final chapter, only to end abruptly and conveniently. There are better books for middle-grade readers to explore historic racism in the US.