This wonderful story will simply tug at your heart. Set at the beginning of summer, in the late 1960s, in North Carolina between two twelve year old girls and their grandmothers, one is white and the other is of color.
Sarah tells the story of how she is reading her library book outside when she should be watching her younger sister Robin. Then the unthinkable happens! Robin is hit by a car. (AND this is only the first page.) Sarah wrestles with herself throughout the book blaming Robin’s accident on herself for not watching Robin more closely. Sarah will be the best sister possible this summer to make up for this accident which has left active, fun loving Robin in a full body cast. Sarah’s parents deem it necessary to give up living in town with a mortgage if they are going to be able to pay for all of the medical bills Robin’s accident will incur. So Sarah’s family move out into the country by her grandparents’ house to live rent free in her Great Uncle John’s old house. Out in the country away from town folks eyes Ruby Lee and Sarah are the best of friends. They have been ever since they were little. Out in the country, Sarah finally is faced with her own ‘white privilege’ when the upcoming school year draws closer. Sarah and Ruby Lee will both be going to the first integrated school in their area. Both of their grand mothers telling them they will not be able to be friends at school where others can see. “Miss Irene sat down across from Granny, ‘Praise Jesus,’ she said. ‘ Maybelle, I need you to help set these girls straight…’
” ‘Sarah, are you ready to be called bad names? How you gonna feel when Betsy Carter doesn’t invite you to her birthday party? Or when you’re not welcome at the lunch table?’ “…
“Miss Irene held up her hand …’Now it’s my turn. Ruby Lee, you better mind your place. The colored children will call you uppity, and the white children will treat you like something bad they stepped in.’ (83)
Later, other words are spoken, some in anger between Ruby Lee and Sarah. Now, once best friends do not speak to each other for the rest of the summer.
Miss Irene and Granny work together to help keep the Ice Cream Social (before the first day of integrated school) peaceful. As the people begin to leave the ice cream social, feeling are heightened when it is revealed “Somebody had keyed the awful word across the side” of the ‘colored’ teacher’s car. (171) ” I hung my head, feeling more hopeless than I ever had before, but Mrs. Smyre’s voice rang out. She sang the words to ‘We Shall Overcome.’ …Then lots of people started singing. White or black, it made no difference, everybody’s voices blended.” (172)
A few days later, on a Sunday morning, Granny and Sarah find themselves alone in the kitchen making breakfast. Granny ruptures one of the bulging veins in her leg. The bleeding turns into an emergency. Sarah is forced to drive Granny in grandpa’s old farm truck to the hospital. There Sarah is eventually reunited with her parents because of Robin’s physical therapy at the hospital. Shortly, Ruby Lee shows up at the hospital because you can’t hide news like that in a small town. Tensions are eased while at the hospital between Sarah and her own guilt over Robin’s accident and between Ruby Lee and Sarah, as well.