It is bad enough that I have a reading list that will take me through the next few years, easily. And I am crazy enough to attempt to randomize the titles a bit. I read a Caudill, a Newbery, an Abraham, a Coretta and my own personal choice – which I had to force upon myself for my own sanity. I still have to plug in a few adult titles or I’ll never get to them. And of course, a year from now, I will have some 50 + additional titles to add. Why do I do this to myself? Where do I get off this crazy carousel?
And now I think I’m going to have to pay closer attention to when I read the books I read… Too many depressing things going on and the last thing I need is to read a depressing book. OR, as in this case, I’m celebrating Easter, but reading a book that is the opposite of celebratory. It took me forever to get through, because it brought me down at a time when I wanted to be exultant!
What was I doing until all hours the evening before Easter sunrise? Finishing this book. That actually worked. Plagued with insomnia, I was able to finish the last 100 some pages – before lying awake the rest of the morning. Pardon me, I digress.
Here is a 2012 Caudill nominee that I would expect to see on the Coretta Scott King Award’s list next year. In fact, I would go so far as to say it seems to belong more appropriately there. But that is entirely my opinion.
This is one of those books that some would call historical fiction because it surrounds events that happened in the past. However, it didn’t happen far enough in the past to earn a sticker at Decatur Public Library. Historical Fiction at DPL happened prior to WWII. WWII gets a “war” sticker. Everything since then, well, it’s floating for the time being. Problem for me is that it happened before my lifetime, but older librarians experienced it.
The setting for this novel is 1968, the Civil Rights Movement, in Chicago, Illinois. It encompasses the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The protagonist is Samuel, Sam, Childs. He is the second son of a black lawyer who works closely with the Reverend King. Sam lives as a well-to-do black child with little understanding of the ghetto.
The girl that Sam has a crush on, Maxie, is from the ghetto. As Sam pursues a relationship with Maxie, he begins to see the way poor blacks live. He and Maxie witness uncalled for police brutality. A friend of Sam’s family, Bucky, is beaten because white police officers want to and not because he has done anything wrong. Still, the police officers arrest him under false charges because nobody is willing to risk their own safety to come forward.
Sam’s older brother Steven, known as Stick, and Maxie’s older brother, Raheem, are both members of the Black Panther Party and are closely following the movement of the Party as its work gains attention on the West Coast. Because some of the Black Panther’s beliefs are at odds with the beliefs of Reverend King’s Civil Rights Movement, there is tension and conflict in Sam’s home.
This book is about Sam deciding if he is a rock or a river. A rock is solid, immovable, sure. A river is motion, turmoil, rage. A river longs to be still and a rock longs to see what is around the next bend. Can one be both? Does Sam want to be like his father or his brother – both stubborn and opinionated. Or can Sam be something new and different and unique and himself?
This book is a fine glimpse into the different ideologies of the Civil Rights Movement and how they worked for and against each other as well as how it affected the people and families involved. I recently reviewed One Crazy Summer another novel about the same conflicts during this time period and the affect they had on families. If you remember, I was thoroughly caught up in the story because I could identify with the protagonist. The Rock and the River was and remains alien to me. I would highly recommend it to African American boys 6th grade and up through high school who will more readily identify with the main character.
This book was education for me. It will be life experience for others.
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