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A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL AND KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Calvin knows how to pass for white. He's done it plenty of times before. For his friends in Chicago, when they wanted food but weren't allowed in a restaurant. For work, when he and his dad would travel for the Green Book.
This is different.
After a tragedy in Chicago forces the family to flee, they resettle in an idyllic all-white suburban town in search of a better life. Calvin's father wants everyone to embrace their new white lifestyles, but it's easier said than done. Hiding your true self is exhausting — which leads Calvin across town where he can make friends who know all of him...and spend more time with his new crush, Lily. But when Calvin starts unraveling dark secrets about the white town and its inhabitants, passing starts to feel even more suffocating—and dangerous—than he could have imagined.
Expertly weaving together real historical events with important reflections on being Black in America, acclaimed author Kim Johnson powerfully connects readers to the experience of being forced to live a life-threatening lie or embrace an equally deadly truth.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 11, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593866412
- File size: 230696 KB
- Duration: 08:00:36
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from March 11, 2024
In 1955, Black 17-year-old Calvin Green and his family are forced to leave Chicago for Levittown, Pa., a sundown town. His father encourages them to present themselves as white by disassociating from anything rooted in Black culture. For Calvin, that means no listening to jazz or playing his beloved trumpet. Calvin’s queer, community-organizing older brother Robert—who can’t pass like Calvin and their parents—lives across town and runs Sojourner, a boardinghouse devoted to supporting Black kids. As Calvin works to blend in, he’s torn between guilt about lying, the feeling that he’s abandoning his brother, and his desire to stay true to his Black identity. When he witnesses Black new student Lily being mistreated by his white peers, he uses his passing privilege to defend her, setting him on a path toward liberating other Black youth. But as he delves into the history of his new town, emerging secrets might make his mission more difficult—and dangerous—than he anticipated. Social issues surrounding redlining and white flight serve as a backdrop to this searing work. Through Calvin’s perceptive and sincere first-person narration, Johnson (Invisible Son) examines the complexities of passing privilege and highlights the extreme lengths that those in power will go to uphold white supremacy. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jennifer March Soloway, Andrea Brown Literary. -
AudioFile Magazine
Golden Voice Kevin R. Free portrays Calvin Greene's mix of paranoia and anger when his African American family demands that he pass as white in a segregated Pennsylvania community in 1955. Free expresses the longing Kevin feels for his sister, who was killed by racial violence. While pretending to be a white person, he also misses his best friend, his estranged brother, and playing jazz. Free depicts how Calvin's quiet disgust for the spoiled white students he attends school with turns to animosity and then to fierce protection of Lily, a new student who is integrating the school. As his feelings for Lily become stronger, so does Free's voicing of Calvin's belief in the developing Civil Rights movement. He contrasts Calvin's good judgment with the wrongness of his father's decisions and the racist community that surrounds them both. S.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
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Formats
- OverDrive Listen audiobook
Languages
- English
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