“Jennifer once asked me what it felt like—to be Negro. I said I really couldn’t explain it. Just that you remembered what you were all the time. All the time… But you really remembered it when you were the only Negro around.” Twelve-year-old Sophie’s upper-middle-class Black family recently moved to a mostly white neighborhood in Los Angeles. Across the unstructured days the summer of 1965, Sophie is understanding what racism looks like there (not being invited to a pool party, the suspicion with which a store clerk watches her). She’s also trying to understand why their new Black housekeeper, Mrs. Baylor, doesn’t like her. As Sophie pursues a part in a neighborhood center play with passion, Sophie’s Spelman-bound older sister, Lily, who sometimes passes for white and has been raised with the expectation she’ll marry a light- skinned boy, falls for Mrs. Baylor’s dark-skinned, politically active son. The tension it causes is compounded by their mother’s simmering anger at their father’s affair. When the Watts riots begin in south central Los Angeles, where Mrs. Baylor’s family lives, they seem a world away for their neighbors but touch Sophie and Lily deeply as the summer comes into sharp focus. The complexities of race and racial politics are a deep seam running through a story grounded by vivid characters, events and emotions, including Sophie’s first crush, crushing disappointment, and fighting with a sister she just as fiercely loves. (Age 11 and older)

It’s 1965, Los Angeles. All twelve-year-old Sophie wants to do is write her book, star in the community play, and hang out with her friend Jennifer. But she’s the new black kid in a nearly all-white neighborhood; her beloved sister, Lily, is going away to college soon; and her parents’ marriage is rocky. There’s also her family’s new, disapproving housekeeper to deal with. When riots erupt in nearby Watts and a friend is unfairly arrested, Sophie learns that life—and her own place in it—is even more complicated than she’d once thought.
      Leavened with gentle humor, this story is perfect for fans of Rita Williams-Garcia.