Jericho Walls
In her first novel, set in 1957, Collier creates a compelling narrative voice in Jo Clawson, a spirited 11-year-old from the North who attempts to negotiate the racial divisions in a small South Carolina town. Jo's mother, a strong woman with Cherokee roots, is even more open-minded than Jo; it is from her more conservative father, a Baptist preacher who has recently moved the family to Jericho, his birthplace, that Jo seeks and finally gains acceptance. Collier juxtaposes Jo's struggle to make friends among the white girls of her age with her gentle but secret friendship with Lucas, the son of the Clawsons' "colored" maid. The white girls ridicule Jo when she unknowingly drinks out of the "colored" water fountain, and she tries to impress them by misbehaving at Sunday school. Meanwhile, Lucas's help when she injures herself earns Jo a sharp reproof for associating with a "colored" boy. While Collier captures tensions within Jo's family and within the community, Jo's confrontation of those tensions seems at times more sophisticated than her years might allow, such as when she quotes Scripture to rebuke a hypocritical group of deacons visiting her father. Jo's decision to help Lucas and his brother take a political stand in order to obtain a library card, landing her temporarily in jail, also strains believability. Like the mockingbird that figures in a somewhat overdone motif here, the author strikes the right notes, but she hits them a little too hard. Ages 9-14.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.