Publisher's Hardcover ©2008 | -- |
Family life. Florida. Juvenile fiction.
Schools. Juvenile fiction.
Self-actualization (Psychology). Juvenile fiction.
Race relations. Juvenile fiction.
Bullies. Juvenile fiction.
Family life. Florida. Fiction.
Schools. Fiction.
Self-actualization (Psychology). Fiction.
Race relations. Fiction.
Bullies. Fiction.
Florida. History. 20th century. Juvenile fiction.
Florida. History. 20th century. Fiction.
Starred Review In 1966, a white kid discovers the cruelty in his small, segregated Florida mining town, where "everybody knew everybody else, unless they were colored," and racism is the norm, in himself, too. All Dewey, 12, wants is to fit in and have people like him, but that gets even harder after he stains his face with black shoe polish to dance in the local minstrel show, and the white bullies choose him as a target. Then his father, a miner, runs for city council again, even though he always loses because he wants to improve the blacks' neighborhood, where Dewey hates going. In his debut YA novel, award-winning adult author Watkins tells a classic loss-of-innocence story. The simple, beautiful prose remains totally true to the child's bewildered viewpoint, which is comic when Dewey does not get the big picture ("you never knew what was really going on"), anguished when he finally sees the truth. The plot includes Dewey's secret romance with his classmate and the sweet revenge on the bullies, and the daily detail about small things. Multiple local characters sometimes bogs the story. Still, there is neither too much nostalgia nor message, and readers will be haunted by the disturbing drama of harsh secrets close to home.
Horn BookDewey Turner hopes to have a normal year in seventh grade, but his simple outlook on life complicates things in mid-1960s Florida. Friendships with other outcasts in his hometown of Sand Mountain force him to consider gender, race, politics, and inequality. Though Dewey seems hopelessly naive for his age, his genuine personality makes him an endearing character.
Kirkus ReviewsSand Mountain, Fla., circa 1966, has a segregated population emotionally wrestling with Jim Crow laws. Dewey Turner, a lonely youth entering seventh grade, seeks popularity but makes the unfortunate decision to paint his face with black shoe polish, pretending to be in a minstrel show. He endures racial taunts and can only latch onto one friend, sassy fellow outcast Darla Turkel, who wears her hair in Shirley Temple curls. Watkins's well-constructed coming-of-age novel at first appears to be something of a nostalgia trip, with references to black-and-white TVs, late-night snipe hunts and pogo sticks. Adults appear as both positive and negative role models, but it's Walter Wratchford, a listless Vietnam veteran, whose disillusioned comments open Dewey's mind to the racial hatred simmering beneath the seemingly innocent Sand Mountain atmosphere. As the story moves to a stunning climactic scene, logical character and content comparisons will be made to To Kill a Mockingbird . Although not a fly-off-the-shelves selection, this title may be paired with Gary D. Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars (2007) as titles set in the '60s suitable for multigenerational reads. (Historical fiction. 12-14)
School Library Journal (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)Gr 7-9 Things are anything but tranquil along the Peace River as Dewey starts seventh grade in Sand Mountain, FL, in 1966. From his nascent desire to wear blackface to play the part of the shoe-shine boy in next year's Rotary Club Minstrel show, to his dad's doomed run for city council that includes a plan to pave streets in Boogerbottom, the part of town where Negroes live, racial issues are underlying themes in the story. Layered above are Dewey's well-justified apprehensions about bullying at school, his "Americanism vs. Communism" class, and his lack of friends. Eighth-grade brother Wayne offers no help. Dancing lessons with Darla, a Shirley Temple wannabe about whom rumors circulate, and her "prissy" twin brother, Darwin, further confuse him. Vietnam vet Walter Wratchford, who rescues the miserable, soaked, dirty Dewey after he skips the first day of school to play at the creek, seems weird. The beauty is in the telling of this bildungsroman, as what is unspoken about the murky racism, sexual climate, and political realities of the time effectively build into a pervasive fog of unease. Readers will understand that Dewey's innocence dims his understanding of the politics of hate, but will easily identify with his deeply felt fears. And they'll share his wonder and confusion about his first kiss and first masturbatory sexual experience with Darla. Readers who enjoyed Gary D. Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars (Clarion, 2007) or Lance Marcum's The Cottonmouth Club (Farrar, 2005) will find sliding down Sand Mountain a faster ride, but infused with similar-and satisfying-gravitas. Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
Voice of Youth AdvocatesSeventh grader Dewey Turner has a series of mishaps including donning "blackface" the day before school starts, sneaking out with his girlfriend who then leaves with his older brother, and being chased while passing out political fliers for his father who is running on the campaign promise of paving the streets in the Negro section of their 1966 Florida town. From these and other experiences, he learns a valuable lesson: "I was pretty sure that there were going to be still more worst days, maybe every day setting a new record for the worst, and it would go on like that for the rest of my life." Watkins pulls off an incredible feat in this novel capturing the racial prejudices and Vietnam War tensions of the era through the eyes of a seventh grade boy. The text is neither dated nor sensationalized; rather, the reader feels Dewey's na´vetÚ and anxiety without the taint of historical perspective. He portrays Dewey as an innocent boy in a dangerous world. Although the plot is compelling, it is the character's development that propels the story. For those students who read The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 (Delacorte, 1995/VOYA December 1995) in middle school, this book poses a great counterpart for the mature reader. Dewey na´vely faces hints of sexual abuse, racism, and adult indiscretions and does not always know how to react or feel, much as teens today.-Ann T. Reddy-Damon.
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Horn Book
Kirkus Reviews
School Library Journal (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)
Voice of Youth Advocates
Wilson's High School Catalog
Wilson's Junior High Catalog
Dad couldn’t carry a tune -- that’s what my mom said. I remember the day she said it, I asked her, "Carry it where?" and she said, "Oh boy, here we go again." Anyway, that’s why he wasn’t in the minstrel show but down in the audience with us. They started up with a prayer, "Lord bless us and keep us," then the Pledge of Allegiance, then the Rotary Club song "R-O-T-A-R-Y, that spells Rotary. R-O-T-A-R-Y is known on land and sea. From north to south, and east to west, He profits most who serves the best." After that a guy sang "Old Man River," then a kid I knew shuffled onto the stage and it was Boopie Larent, who was twelve, the same as me, and used to be a friend of mine. We were in the same kid choir at the Methodist Church. He wore a white bow tie, which I bet somebody tied for him, and white gloves, and big white lips, and his face was shoe-polish black, not like real colored people. He sang "Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy," which was about a very happy colored boy who shined people’s shoes and made them happy, too.
Boopie carried a shoe shine kit and danced soft-shoe. That’s what my dad told me it was. It just looked like sliding around to me, then some leaning way forward, and some running in place to keep from pitching over on his face while he windmilled his arms. The only other kids I ever saw dance before that were the twins Darla and Darwin Turkel, who always tap-danced at County Fair, where my dad worked in the Rotary Club corn-dog booth. Darla and Darwin were all dressed up with their mom a couple of rows in front of us that night at the minstrel show. Their mom used to wear a mermaid costume and do underwater ballets and stuff over at Weeki Wachee Springs by the Gulf of Mexico. Now she taught dancing lessons sometimes. Darla had fifty-two ringlets in her hair, just like Shirley Temple, or that was the story, anyway. Everybody said to stay away from Darwin -- he was worse than a girl.
I realized something about halfway through Boopie doing the "Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy." "Is that my shoe-shine kit? I asked my dad. I was holding his hand, feeling his calluses. I was too old to be holding his hand -- when you get to be twelve, you’re too old for a lot of things -- but I did it anyway and he let me when it was dark like that in the auditorium and nobody could see. I liked how it felt from him working at the phosphate mine where he was an engineer, only not the kind that drove a train.
I thought maybe my dad was listening to the show and that’s why he didn’t answer, so I asked him again. “Is that the shoe-shine kit you bought me, Dad?” I don’t know why it made me mad. But if it was my shoe-shine kit, I thought I ought to get to be the Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy. Everybody was laughing at old Boopie up there, and the harder they laughed, the more I wished it was me. I wanted to be funny like that, and dance, and sing, and wear a white tie and white gloves and white lips and shoe-shine face darker than the colored people.
DOWN SAND MOUNTAIN by Steve Watkins. Copyright © 2008 by Steve Watkins. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Somerville, MA.
"R-O-T-A-R-Y, That Spells Rotary" from the Rotary songbook by Norris C. Morgan. Copyright © 1923 by the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE. Reprinted by permission of the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE.
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpted from Down Sand Mountain by Steve Watkins
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
In a tale full of humor and poignancy, a sheltered twelve-year-old boy comes of age in a small Florida mining town amid the changing mores of the 1960s.
It's 1966 and Dewey Turner is determined to start the school year right. No more being the brunt of every joke. No more "Deweyitis." But after he stains his face with shoe polish trying to mimic the popular Shoeshine Boy at the minstrel show, he begins seventh grade on an even lower rung, earning the nickname Sambo and being barred from the "whites only" bathroom. The only person willing to talk to him, besides his older brother, Wayne, is fellow outsider Darla Turkel, who wears her hair like Shirley Temple and sings and dances like her, too. Through their friendship, Dewey gains awareness of issues bigger than himself and bigger than his small town of Sand Mountain: issues like race and segregation, the reality of the Vietnam War, abuse, sexuality, and even death and grieving. Written in a riveting, authentic voice, at times light-hearted and humorous and at others devastating and lonely, this deeply affecting story will stay with readers long after the book is closed.