Call Me By My Name
Gr 8 Up—Narrator Rodney Boulet first meets Tater Henry in 1965 when Tater strolls into whites-only South City Park, hoping to try out for Pony League. While the other players heap plenty of verbal abuse on the young black boy, 10-year-old Rodney gets Tater safely out of the park before they can do physical harm. Over the next few years, Rodney and his twin sister, Angie, occasionally run into Tater in their small Louisiana town, and the three develop a casual friendship. When their high school is finally desegregated and both boys make the football team, their friendship is cemented. By the time they are seniors, the pair are leading the team to the state championship, which somewhat softens the town's narrow-minded views but not entirely: as Angie's and Tater's relationship moves beyond friendship, the couple are pressured from all sides. They do their best to ignore it, but as they dream of the not-too-distant day when all three of them will be at Louisiana State University, something happens that completely obliterates their plans. Students looking for lots of sports action may be disappointed, as this is a more contemplative tale of friendship in turbulent times. Rodney's quiet and matter-of-fact narration underscores the casual prejudice prevalent well into the 1970s in the Deep South. Recommend to fans of Patricia McKissack or Kristin Levine.—Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA