A review by the_fabric_of_words
Just South of Home by Karen Strong
5.0
This is a ghost story, a bit spooky for October, but dead serious in confronting racism. Pay attention to the tree on the front cover, as it's the setting for the ghost soul's and community's agony and pain.
Sarah spends the summer doing chores at her grandmother's house, with her little brother Ellis. She wants to hole up in her room and read instead, but her sophisticated and glamorous cousin, Janie, whose mom is in LA pursuing her acting career, comes to visit and Sarah's tasked with keeping her out of trouble.
Good luck with that! Janie has a knack for sticking her nose into things that are "better left alone," so when the girls, Ellis and Sarah's friend, Jasper, follow Janie into the forest to find an abandoned old church and its graveyard, you know something's going to crawl out of the ground and come after them.
But it's not at all what you imagine.
By the burnt-out husk of an enormous old tree in the cemetery, they find a haint, a ghost of a young, barefoot, bedraggled boy who's waiting for his mom. Janie finds a piece of costume jewelry in the dirt and takes it.
Soon the haints are at Sarah's window, leaving their palm and foot prints all over the side of her house! They want the trinket back, or so Sarah and Janie surmise.
The kids do not know what took place in the branches of that tree, but they will find out. And as they slowly uncover the horror of their town's history, they also uncover a community grieving and still suffering in stifling silence.
This was an excellent read, featuring Black and mixed characters working together to expose the racism and prejudice buried underneath the veneer of modern day, and in the process, promote healing for the haints trapped in the tree, within their own families, and in their community, all by confronting the past head-on.
A powerful read! Enjoy.
Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?
Visit my blog, The Fabric of Words, for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Sarah spends the summer doing chores at her grandmother's house, with her little brother Ellis. She wants to hole up in her room and read instead, but her sophisticated and glamorous cousin, Janie, whose mom is in LA pursuing her acting career, comes to visit and Sarah's tasked with keeping her out of trouble.
Good luck with that! Janie has a knack for sticking her nose into things that are "better left alone," so when the girls, Ellis and Sarah's friend, Jasper, follow Janie into the forest to find an abandoned old church and its graveyard, you know something's going to crawl out of the ground and come after them.
But it's not at all what you imagine.
By the burnt-out husk of an enormous old tree in the cemetery, they find a haint, a ghost of a young, barefoot, bedraggled boy who's waiting for his mom. Janie finds a piece of costume jewelry in the dirt and takes it.
Soon the haints are at Sarah's window, leaving their palm and foot prints all over the side of her house! They want the trinket back, or so Sarah and Janie surmise.
The kids do not know what took place in the branches of that tree, but they will find out. And as they slowly uncover the horror of their town's history, they also uncover a community grieving and still suffering in stifling silence.
This was an excellent read, featuring Black and mixed characters working together to expose the racism and prejudice buried underneath the veneer of modern day, and in the process, promote healing for the haints trapped in the tree, within their own families, and in their community, all by confronting the past head-on.
A powerful read! Enjoy.
Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?
Visit my blog, The Fabric of Words, for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/