A Matter of Souls (Fiction - Young Adult)
Gr 7 Up—This collection of short stories examines the African American experience from the years just after the Civil War through the Civil Rights era. There are several stories in this slim volume that are excellent additions to the body of historical fiction focusing on the Black American experience and would be especially welcome for helping to drive interdisciplinary study in upper grades. All of the work is threaded through with spirituality and romance as part of the everyday experience of people, helping to personalize and humanize stories of violence horrific and mundane. However, the selections are uneven in quality, the first four standing out as strong literary pieces and the remaining four offering diminishing returns until the final story, the only one not told from a black perspective, which ends the collection on a maudlin note. This would be a great book to introduce to a teacher to diversify classroom reading, but because it does not hang together as a cohesive whole, it would be less of a resource for students on the open shelves.—L. Lee Butler, Stoughton High School, MA