Sand 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)

Dewey 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.

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.

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

Seventh 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.