Customer Reviews

The Rock and the River

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I have a variety of different bugaboos that I'll periodically remove from my bag of standard complaints and shout about for long periods of time. They're comforting. They bring me peace. One such complaint concerns The Black Panthers and children's literature. Mainly the fact that the two never meet up. Ever. Once in a while a stray bit of YA literature will come along and mention the Panthers, but it's exceedingly rare. The last time it happened ("America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60's" by Laban Hill) the Panthers got a small chapter and then the book moved on swiftly. I've never been able to figure this out. The Panthers were built for exciting literature. Why ignore their amazing history? "The Rock and the River" by Kekla Magoon answers that question almost immediately. For any author to write about the Panthers they need all the tools at their discretion. They need to be able to show depth, both sides to every issue, complex ideology, and difficult choices. To be blunt, the writer needs to do a lot more work than you might find in your average fictional fare. A little blood, a little sweat, and a whole bucket of tears appear to have gone into Magoon's novel, and the result is a book that never reaches for the easy answers. This is a book that challenges young readers to think. Always (as we can see here) a dangerous proposition.

Being the son of a prominent Civil Rights activist in 1968 Chicago isn't as much fun as you might think. Half the time brothers Stick and Sam are stuck standing for hours at rallies without really feeling connected to the event. Their imposing father (always referred to as "Father" and never "Dad") runs a tight ship. That's why Sam finds it all the stranger when his brother starts hanging out with The Black Panthers. Reconciling what the Panthers say to how they are perceived, particularly by his parents, pushes Sam to choose between to different paths. Or are they really as different as he initially thought? The answer isn't easy to understand.

Normally civil rights era novels for young people are easy to write. Racists = bad. Black people and folks friendly to the Civil Rights cause = good. Once in a while a sympathetic child of the racists will get thrown in there for spice, but generally you know what to expect. Good and evil are practically outlined in black markers and thick white paint. Black Panthers put an entirely different spin on the whole outlook. And I admit that I was pretty skeptical when I first picked this book up. I decided right off the bat that I knew how the story would take shape. Sam's older brother would join the Panthers. He'd be initially drawn to how cool they were and then draw back when he saw them do something violent. Then the ending would contain some self-satisfied reinforcement of Civil Rights movement politics and the Panthers would come off looking like they do in the movie "Forrest Gump". Which is to say, no better than thugs. So when the book veered sharply away from my cynical predictions, you could have bowled me over with a spoon. They mention the breakfast program? They mention the classes and all the points in their ten-point platform? And not to spoil it, but if you see the ending of this book coming then I tip my hat to you. It came out of the blue for me.

Because a part of what Magoon does so well is to bring issues of class into this book. Class in kids' books usually is used as a foil for a character. Example: Such n' so was poor, and here's the story of how they became rich. In terms of historical fiction, your main character can be poor or they can be friends with someone from the wrong side of the tracks. What "The Rock and the River" does is place its story within the context of class. The Civil Rights movement did a lot of good, but there was a perception amongst lower income blacks that for all the supposed strides, they themselves weren't seeing a lot of change. Police could still go into their neighborhoods, beat them up, and arrest them for no reason at all. There's a moment in the book when Sam's girl, Maxie, points out to him that he may have a different view of how black men get arrested because he's an upper-middle class kid and she lives in a rough part of town. Because in terms of the who the cops arrest, "They don't need a reason. Maybe they do up where you live, but they sure don't down here." It becomes clear that what the Panthers did well was support their lower-income communities. They gave out free breakfasts. They patrolled the neighborhoods to keep an eye on police abuses. Magoon doesn't point fingers or ever say that one group or another did more immediate good for the poorer people, but you understand why the Panthers existed and why they felt a need to help. As Stick says, "It's the difference between demonstrating and organizing... Between waiting for handouts that aren't coming, or taking care of each other the way we have to. It's the rock and the river, you know? They serve each other, but they're not the same thing."

The book is particularly good at showing the reader that particular kind of pain that comes with living with someone (in this case, a parent) that exudes certainty and righteousness at all times. Once you hit a certain age you think that you'll never be able to do enough to please them. So Stick's disillusionment with peaceful protests has as much to do with his thoughts about his father as anything else. As for Sam, he feels like he isn't certain of anything at all. He envies Maxie, Stick, and even his father for believing so completely in their causes while he is left to fend for himself. To figure out what's right from what's wrong. In the midst of all this I was a little surprised to see Sam pretty much going where he wanted, and doing what he wanted for quite a lot of this book. His parents are supposedly keeping him on a tight reign, but at the same time he's getting away with a lot. It just seemed oddly permissive of these otherwise stodgy parents. Also, the plot jumps about a bit. There's a herky jerky quality to it that leaps from place to place and emotion to emotion without there always being a rhyme or reason. Judicious ironing could have helped, I think.

The magic of the book, however, lies less in the plotting and more in the effect on the reader. Here Magoon's language is key. Right from the start you're reading sentences like "Rough concrete pillars stood proud above the courthouse steps, looking weathered and bored, like they were tired of carrying the weight of the law on their shoulders." And on the next page, "I was tired of marching, of protesting. Of leaning my back against a wall and expecting the wall to move." I love that right from the start Magoon has honed in on what her character feels and wants and doesn't want. She has a talent for synthesizing a person into their simplest form. Stick and his father? "Not a bone of compromise in either of them." And later in the book Sam end up supporting his father. "I could tell he was trying not to lean against me, but he had to, so he did." Showing not telling, kids. Showing not telling.

Name me a book for young people that explains rioting. Not the effects of the people hurt by it, but why people do it in the first place. Name me a book for kids that contains a sentence equivalent to, "... as long as you think being a Panther just means carrying a gun, you won't be able to understand what's happening here." Name me a book for kids that even mentions the Black Panthers in a complex manner. The good and the bad. The problems and the solutions. As it stands, Kekla Magoon's book is an original. There are few enough books out there like it, and I think we have room in this world for more. A smart, sensible, deeply layered title. A necessary addition to our shelves from a time period too often colored in black and white terms.

Sometimes you read a book and it's like candy--delicious for the moment and then gone. Other times you read a book that is like a nourishing meal-- fills you up and leaves you satisfied for longer. THE ROCK AND THE RIVER is a banquet of piquant flavors that play against each other to delicious result*. Sam's father is a colleague of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., following Dr. King's doctrine of peaceable protest. Sam's older brother Stick is working with the Black Panthers, and wants to see change come faster, even if it means some violent confrontations. The Chicago police don't come off looking very good in this book, but the author makes it clear there is blame enough (and good intentions enough) to go around. Sam's friend Maxine, and Sam's mother are both richly drawn and strong females in Sam's life.

The action starts building from the first pages, and keeps moving at a steady pace. Near the end of the book, Sam is faced with a serious courtroom choice that I felt sure would be the final conflict in the book. A chapter further on I was sitting with my jaw dropped open, not believing what had just happened.

This book is one that I can easily recommend to young adult readers, just for the pleasure of reading it, but it would be an excellent addition to high school social studies classes as well. The final few pages of the book are the Author's Note giving brief background of the civil rights movement and the Black Panther party.

*Reviewer's Note: I just finished reading JULIE & JULIA, another excellent title for a very different audience, hence the food-oriented review comments!

I decided to purchase The Rock and the River after reading positive editorial reviews, and was rewarded in doing so. To call it a stunning coming of age story is not merely enough, as it transcends the genre. It is beautifully written and the prose is deep without overshadowing the humanity of the characters. It is one of those novels that will make you think, cry, and remember. I was disappointed to learn that this is the author's first novel (while at the same time being pleasantly surprised by the fact). I look forward to reading her next book.

I taught middle school in an urban district, so I've read a lot of books with this target audience, and this is one of the best, if not the best. I began reading it and could not put it down--flying through it in just two sittings. I lent it to a couple of my students and they had the same response. I hope you enjoy it!

THE ROCK AND THE RIVER is deeply moving, troubling, and ultimately, hopeful story about the civil rights movement. The writing is beautiful; the characters so complex and real it's hard to believe they're fictional. This is a truly stunning novel that should be on every upper middle grade reading list in the U.S.

Thirteen-year-old Samuel "Sam" Childs is the son of prominent civil rights activist, Roland Childs. Roland is a (fictional) associate and protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a supporter of non-violent demonstrations. Sam's brother Steven ("Stick"), meanwhile, is a budding Black Panther. A series of events - an altercation at a demonstration, the wrongful arrest of a friend (Bucky), finding a gun which Stick has hidden in their shared room, and getting involved with his girlfriend in Panther-related activities such as the free breakfast and evening "political education classes" - places Sam between these two opposing forces and pulls him apart as he struggles to decide between "the rock" or "the river".

This book and I did not get off on the right foot together and it didn't get much better as it went along. I seriously believe that if an author is going to set her book in a real city, she needs to use real geography. I suppose I've read many books that didn't follow this rule and perhaps I missed it, but having lived in Chicago for 20+ years, I couldn't miss it this time. The book opens on the steps of a courthouse with wide columns amidst the tall buildings, presumably downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, there are no such courthouses in downtown Chicago (or any other part of Chicago), and certainly none within easy walking distance of a "main hospital". Sam's girlfriend lives on "Bryant Street", which doesn't exist in Chicago. Sam's house is supposedly "uphill" from the projects Maxie lives in. I'd like to know where in Chicago is "uphill" from anywhere else in Chicago. Said house also has a driveway, which is possible, but not likely - most Chicago houses utilize the alleys. At one point, Sam narrates, "The lake was a short distance away. I had no idea I'd run so far." You mean he had no idea he'd run over an eight-lane major thoroughfare? Or does the author not know about Lake Shore Drive?

At another point there is a demonstration on the steps of the same courthouse mentioned above at the time Bucky is brought for trial and the author describes how Bucky is brought into the courthouse building in "an orange prison jumpsuit". The only problem is that criminal trials in Chicago are held at 26th and California in a building that adjoins the grounds of Cook County Jail. Inmates are brought to trial through the back of the courthouse early in the morning and held until time for their trial. No crowd ever sees the inmates enter the courthouse. Not to mention no civil rights lawyer worth his salt would allow his client to attend his trial in "County Orange". And the author needs to learn the difference between jail and prison.

Each of these details alone is perhaps trivial, but it adds up to the fact that the author doesn't know the city she is writing about, which hurts her credibility. Perhaps I was already biased by the geography, but I also didn't get the feeling that the author really knew her characters either. I found the dialogue stilted and clichéd, like I was watching a bad soap opera.

In fact, I found the writing in general to be overwrought and melodramatic. For one thing, the author does far too much telling and not enough showing. She has Sam narrate every convoluted thought rather than having him do things which would show how torn he is between his father, his brother, and trying to find his own identity.

Just after the climactic scene, Sam tells us, "Until then, I had never known anger...." But the whole book is about anger. Sam and Stick are always exploding at each other, their father, their mother, and every one else, often for reasons which the author doesn't clearly elucidate. Sam comes across as a stubborn little brat who thinks he knows everything but who really knows nothing at all. His humbling in the last few pages does not redeem him and I found him unlikable until the end, even though I am sure that was not the author's intention. Other characters as well are, at times, portrayed as too extreme to be believed. All police officers - and almost all whites in general - for instance, are depicted as masses of maniacal hatred toward blacks. The reality was, of course, more nuanced. Sure, some whites literally hated blacks, but most harbored a mixture of feelings from empathy to misunderstanding to fear, especially toward the militant Black Panthers.

I will give kudos to the author for her presentation of the similarities and differences between the non-violent civil rights movement and the Black Panthers. Too often the Panthers are portrayed solely as militant and violent, overlooking the lion's share of their contribution to black empowerment: free breakfasts for children, free health clinics, organizing and teaching blacks to learn to help themselves in general. And I will give credit for portraying the struggle of a young black boy-man growing up surrounded by inequality, injustice, racism and violence and trying to come to terms with his own feelings about violence and retaliation. But overall, the book simply wasn't convincing for me.

As a sort of side note, I have to bring up a point the author makes in her "Author's Note" at the end. In describing the civil rights movement, she talks about the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and how that ended segregation on public transportation. Except that it didn't. The City of Montgomery would never have backed down and desegregated the buses on its own, no matter how much it was hurting economically - it was too much of a threat to "the Southern Way of Life". It took the Supreme Court decision in Browder v. Gayle to legally end bus segregation. This point is important because it goes to the heart of the difference between the non-violent civil rights movement and the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were right that there is much that blacks can do for themselves to become empowered. But ultimately, to change society, blacks had to (and still have to) work with whites to change laws. The Black Panther movement could never have generated enough white sympathy to win Supreme Court rulings such as Browder and Brown, and certainly not legislative victories like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. It took the determined but loving patience of the non-violent movement to accomplish that.

"The Black Panther Party, without question, represents the greatest threat to internal security of the country."
-- FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in a late 1960's internal memo

With a click of the mouse, you can retrieve images of the Black Panther Party from the late 1960s -- the images that were broadcast into our suburban living rooms when Holling Hoodhood (from THE WEDNESDAY WARS) and I were junior high school students on Long Island. They were pretty unsettling images -- serious-faced black guys with those black berets and shotguns -- at least if, like Holling and me in the spring of 1968, you were thirteen-year-old suburban white kids living a million miles away from those places where policemen far too often had people of color feeling totally unsafe in America.

"The cops took turns striking Bucky with their nightsticks, fists, and feet. The radio in the background seemed to sing louder, the cheerful pop tune warring with the sick thwack of baton blows against skin.
"The tall cop bent close to Bucky, his square nose practically touching Bucky's cheek, and said something. Bucky reacted sharply, jerking backward, his fists stretched out in front of him. The cop laughed and hammered Bucky's arms with his baton.
"The music cut suddenly and the silence suffocated the street. The air grew thick, hard to breathe without choking. Only the hum of cars on nearby streets disturbed the still air. The stocky cop lifted the radio from his belt and spoke into it.
"Maxie moved closer to me. This couldn't be happening right in front of us, especially not to Bucky. It went on forever. Finally the tall cop brought his nightstick down hard against Bucky's temple. The blow connected, making a loud crack. Maxie turned her face into my shoulder. I slid my arm over Maxie's back, hugging her closer."

In the spring of 1968 in Chicago, Sam is thirteen. He is the son of black Civil Rights activist Roland Childs, a confidante of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Like Dr. King, Mr. Childs is an uncompromising advocate and practitioner of nonviolence.

Sam and his older brother Steven (Stick) have grown up in the Movement. But lately, Stick, a voracious reader, has been surreptitiously studying the books and magazines being shared by his friends who are becoming involved with the Black Panthers.

When Sam and Stick encounter white thugs armed with bats, bottles, and sticks who are beating participants at the edge of the crowd at one of Father's protests, Stick gets into a fight and is bashed in the head with a broken bottle while trying to protect an elderly woman who is being attacked. The brothers split the scene with the approach of cops (They know which color will get arrested no matter who caused the trouble.) and head to the nearest hospital to get Stick's forehead sewn up.

To observe the treatment of the brothers at that Chicago hospital is to begin to understand what life was still like for blacks dealing with white America in 1968. For black kids like Sam and Stick, you could be in danger, or at least be treated inhumanely, at any given moment. For some like their close friend Bucky -- who had done absolutely nothing wrong -- the policemen who are supposed to be protecting you can so arbitrarily hurt you or kill you.

"Violence begets violence; hate begets hate; and toughness begets toughness. It is all a descending spiral, and the end is destruction -- for everyone." -- Dr. King, 1958

I have to admit that early on in reading THE ROCK AND THE RIVER, as I began to see the path Stick is embarking upon, I got prepared to tell stories of my high school friend Jamie Dunn who so greatly affected me back then with his advocacy and modeling of nonviolence. But my expectations of what was to come in THE ROCK AND THE RIVER had far too much to do with my simplistic perceptions dating back forty years of what the Black Panther Party was all about.

In the course of Sam Childs' coming of age story, amidst the American history I thought I knew so well, author Kekla Magoon has radically altered my understanding of the Black Panther Party. In her debut novel, Magoon, who studied history as an undergraduate, does an exceptional job of integrating many sides of very complex racial and political issues into this tense tale of an adolescent who has grown up in the Civil Rights Movement.

"Maybe now I could return to Father's world, bring all of myself back to the place I'd started from. Maybe I could learn to ignore the gnawing in the pit of my stomach telling me it wasn't enough."

There are powerful metaphors to be found in the huge building block structure that the brothers have been constructing for years in the room they share -- or shared until Stick was no longer willing or able to abide by Father's orders. Sam finds himself stuck between Father and Stick who are as similar in their uncompromising natures as they are seemingly different in their beliefs of what is the right thing to do. While engaging in an innocent relationship with his schoolmate Maxie, he has to deal on a daily basis with life and death issues.

Sam must make critical decisions on whether or not -- and if so, how -- to get involved. Will he be the rock or the river? Like me, he must come to a true understanding of the philosophy that his father lives by and what the Black Panthers and brotherhood are really all about.

The Black Panther Party is seldomly explored in Young Adult literature. Arguably inappropriate for a YA audience, however, Kekla Magoon has provided a multifaceted perspective of the Party and it's mission in a fitting fashion. In "The Rock and the River", Magoon has delved into the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panther Party in a historical fiction context. Sam, the main character, is divided between his father who believes in non-violence and his brother, Stick, who joins the Black Panthers. As a thirteen-year-old, Sam has to grow up quickly, to witness and experience what we know the Civil Rights Era to be: good vs evil.

Magoon's writing style is effortless and fluid. An excellent read for anyone interested in historical fiction.

This book grabbed me from the first pages.

Even though it's historical, the writing is so immediate that the events could be happening now. The author doesn't try to shove a history lesson down your throat, she just brings you into the world of a family living at a turbulent time in our nation's recent past. We see political marches, racial clashes, the death of MLK, all through the eyes of a very young teenage boy experiencing his first crush, arguing with his brother, struggling with his parents, and trying to do the right thing.

It's a moving story and a brilliant debut novel.

Interesting and perceptive story about a young adolescent African-American boy whose father is a major (fictional) leader in the civil rights movement in Chicago. As he and his older brother struggle under his father's shadow, his brother leans toward joining the Black Panthers in defiance of his father's explicit principles of nonviolence. A good window for young readers into the troubles of the civil rights period, what the conflict between nonviolent and revolutionary civil rights workers meant, and a nuanced portrayal of both sides, especially the Panthers.