Guardian (by Julius Lester)

Ansel, growing up in a racist southern town in the 1940s, is friends with a black boy, has a crush on the preacher's daughter, and can't imagine doing anything with his life other than taking over his father's store. Then the preacher's daughter is raped and murdered by the son of a powerful white family, and his friend's father is accused. Ansel and his father both know the truth, but neither says anything when the man is lynched, a decision that blights the rest of their lives. Includes author's historical note, appendix, chart of lynchings by state, and brief bibliography.

Of all of the horrible things now thankfully in our history instead of our present, though not so far back as we'd like to think, lynching is surely one of the worst -- the act itself, of course, but also the horrifically festive way it was often perpetrated. Author Julius Lester lays bare the reality of the act, and the culture that supported it, both in the story, and even more so in the stunning back matter, which will shatter many of the comfortable myths that we use to separate ourselves from our own past. 

The subject matter here is strong stuff, and Lester sets it out in stark and angry terms. At times this works against him, causing him to create cartoon villains like Zeph, the white boy who rapes and murders the virginal preacher's daughter and pins the blame on an innocent black man. But at other times he shows remarkable subtlety, especially with Ansel's conflicted feelings about his crush, his father, his future, and, eventually, his own part in the lynching.

 

Author: Julius Lester
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: October 1, 2008
Number of pages: 129
Hardcover price: $16.99