Author Sandra Forrester, acclaimed for bringing to life little-known aspects of American history, weaves an engrossing tale about a girl of mixed race in nineteenth-century New Orleans. Simone Racine wants only to be like her cousin Claire-Marie, with beautiful ball gowns and a white gentleman in her future who will be her "protector." But as Simone grows from being a self-centered girl to a courageous young woman, she decides to take a tremendous risk -she helps her aunt's slaves escape. This is historical fiction that will captivate young readers.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-In many respects, Simone Racine is a privileged young lady in 1838 New Orleans. She attends private school and lives in a fine house with her parents and brothers. Yet her world is restricted by codes of conduct required of the city's mixed-race Creoles, or gens de couleur libre. Creole women measure success by their luck at the Quadroon Balls, attended by young ladies in hopes of attracting long-term "protectors" from the white male population. Simone reveres her father, a successful sculptor, but as a "man of color," his status as a life partner for her mother is less than high. Blond plantation-owner Monsieur Larousse, who "protects" Simone's aunt and is father to her fashionable, flirtatious, much-envied cousin Claire-Marie, is far more attractive. Then, unable to pay his gambling debts and support two families, he deserts the two women, leaving them penniless and without social status. Soon after her 13th birthday, Simone is jolted out of her self-centered reveries by her grandfather's mortal illness. The crisis triggers events that force Simone to question the boundaries of her social class and lead her to do the unthinkable: she decides to risk her life by helping the family slaves escape from bondage. As related in Simone's lively diary entries, this book is an absorbing journey into a unique and long-vanished regional culture.
Starr E. Smith, Marymount University Library, Arlington, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Starr E. Smith, Marymount University Library, Arlington, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The author of Sound the Jubilee (1995) and its sequel, My Home Is Over Jordan (1997) explores the antebellum culture of New Orleans' gens de couleur libre (free people of color) in this diaristic tale of a 13-year-old losing some illusions. Seeing the high style in which her cousin Claire Marie, daughter of a Creole aristocrat's kept woman, lives, Simone chafes under her mother's strict regime. When charming Tante Madelon arrives from Paris, Simone falls under her spell, ultimately volunteering to join her in helping two slaves escape, and making preparations to follow her back to France. Then Madelon departs suddenly, taking Claire Marie and leaving Simone to spirit the slaves out of town on her own and to understand that her mother, for all her lack of outward affection, is a far steadier role model. Several characters are only sketched, and Simone directly observes too little of her city to present readers with a true cross-section, but glimpses of a slave market, the wild Sunday afternoon slave dances in "Congo Square," and, more generally, the limited opportunities allowed by a rigid class system create at least a partial picture of time and place. Contrast Gary Paulsen's view of that same society's dissolution after the Civil War in Sarny: A Life Remembered (1997). John Peters
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
shana,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dust from Old Bones (Hardcover)
I read this book and thought it was wonderful literature. This book exposed living in the 1830's. I really enjoyed how the writer expressed in detail making it possible to place oneself in that state of being. If you haven't read this book I recommened that you read it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book.,
This review is from: Dust from Old Bones (Hardcover)
Simone is thirteen. She is part European, part African, and lucky to be living free, since the place is New Orleans in the 1830s. Her aunt's slaves are not so fortunate. And when she decides to help them escape, she risks her own life. This book was written in the form of Simone's diary. It was a very good book.
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