When Winter Robeson Came
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The whole world seems to transform during the summer of 1965, when Eden’s cousin from Mississippi comes to visit her in L.A. just as the Watts Riots erupt, in this stirring new novel by Coretta Scott King Honor winner Brenda Woods.
When Eden’s cousin Winter comes for a visit, it turns out he’s not just there to sightsee. He wants to figure out what happened to his dad, who disappeared ten years earlier from the Watts area of L.A. So the cousins set out to investigate together, and what they discover brings them joy—and heartache. It also opens up a whole new understanding of their world, just as the area they’ve got their sights on explodes in a clash between the police and the Black residents. For six days Watts is like a war zone, and Eden and Winter become heroes in their own part of the drama. Eden hopes to be a composer someday, and the only way she can describe that summer is a song with an unexpected ending, full of changes in tempo and mood--totally unforgettable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Woods (The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA) explores the Watts riots of August 1965 through the experience of two Black cousins in a rhythmic historical novel in verse. In Los Angeles, 12-year-old narrator Eden Louise Coal aspires to become a songwriter. With her 13-year-old cousin Winter Robeson visiting, Eden anticipates two weeks of fun, but his arrival makes her long for the music of Mississippi, "the country roads and folks" she grew up with until the family's move to California two years prior. Winter, who has only experienced life under racial segregation, relishes "being able to sit where you please" on the bus and enjoys time with his hosts while planning to search the Watts neighborhood for his "disappeared daddy," who vanished a decade prior after promising to send for his family. But after Eden's mother receives a phone call that the residents of Watts are fed up with police brutality and harassment, everything goes up in smoke. Interwoven with plentiful music references ("Winter and I became a duo; our ballad, a duet") and utilizing historically accurate language, Woods's harmonious play-by-play narrative of growing up during the Watts Riots spotlights some long-lasting effects of racial inequality and discrimination on children. Ages 10–up.
