Moses Thomas is just a normal young boy living with his family and enjoying life. The fact that he's black doesn't bother him. But it bothers other people...
Random House sent me a copy of this book to review (thank you). It's a good one to read during black history month and it's currently available at your local bookstore.
This story is set in a time not long after the civil war. Moses' grandmother, named Boo Nanny, used to be a slave and is a natural healer and still works seven days a week. She also has some secrets she doesn't talk about.
Moses' father is a newspaper man, his mother works as a nanny, and Moses goes to school. They are all content with life and happy with each other. But there is unrest in the country because the whites see black people taking their jobs and gaining some political power.
This was also the era of Jim Crow, which might have inspired the title. PBS defines Jim Crow as this: "Jim Crow was not a person, yet affected the lives of millions of people. Named after a popular 19th-century minstrel song that stereotyped African Americans, "Jim Crow" came to personify the system of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation in the United States."
As Moses' life starts changing with the white man's attack on the black's lives, he begins to understand what life is like under segregation.
Ms. Wright shows you the authentic world of segregation and how it can tear family apart. This is a very realistic story and I'd suggest discussing it with your child. I'd like to think it only depicts history but oppression still exists.
This would make a good history lesson for those who haven't explored the past.
Happy reading.
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