Amazon.com Review
In this intriguing story that will appeal to younger teens, a boy goes on a journey in search of his roots. Zack is the son of an unlikely but happy marriage: his mother is a black blues singer and his father is a white Jewish college professor. Zack is resentful and bitter toward his parents for moving--in his last year of high school--from Toronto to a small college town in the country. He misses the excitement of the city, and things are rough at school, where he meets racial rejection for the first time in his life. Zack is comfortable with his Jewish heritage through his paternal grandparents, but his mother has without explanation cut off all contact with her relatives in Mississippi, so he knows nothing about his own black history. When he finds an old chest buried in the back yard and discovers that it belonged to a freed slave, his interest in exploring his African American background is piqued. While his parents are on a trip, he commandeers the family truck and drives to Mississippi to meet his grandfather. There Zack discovers a part of himself that he never knew, but he also must face the bitter understanding that racism can be a double-edged sword. (Ages 10 to 14)
--Patty Campbell
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Canadian author Bell (Crabbe's Journey) offers a unique and sometimes discomfiting perspective on racism in an issue-driven story narrated by a mixed-race teen. Zack Lane, the son of a Mississippi-born black woman and a Canadian man of Romanian Jewish descent, has managed more or less to fit in, until his family moves from Toronto to semirural, all-white Fergus, Ont. Zack misses big-city life and does poorly at his new high school, jeopardizing his chances of going to college. Worse, the girl he likes stands by when her cousin hurls a racial slur. But things change when he unearths an 18th-century dispatch case and, in the course of an extra-credit history project, discovers that it belonged to a former African slave who fought in the Revolution. Zack then decides to dig into his own history and drives to Natchez to meet his estranged grandfather. On his journey south, Zack comes face-to-face with bigotry, not least his grandfather's all-consuming hatred of whites. Readers will likely forgive the contrivances in the plot and the not especially nuanced social commentary. Zack may be the only character who rises above typing, but he narrates energetically and with a charismatic insight, and teens will like his smart, independent voice. Ages 12-up. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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