Revolution

Starred review from June 23, 2014
This second installment of Wiles's Sixties Trilogy begins during the Freedom Summer of 1964, when hundreds of college students and community organizers arrived to help Mississippi's disenfranchised black citizens overcome voting hurdles erected by local officials. Sunny Fairchild, 12, has seen newspaper stories about these "invaders" and feels an affinity: her household has been taken over by her father's new wife, her children, and her elderly mother. Still, Sunny plans a summer floating in the (whites only) municipal pool, listening to the Beatles, and finding adventures. A chance encounter with Raymond, a talented young black athlete, sets Sunny on a dangerous course, one that exposes the poisonous racism that has her small town on the verge of exploding. As in Countdown (2010), Wiles intersperses Sunny and Raymond's story with historic photos, excerpts from speeches and news stories, and song lyrics that add power and heft to the story. Though the novel is long, it's also accessible and moving, and it will open many eyes to the brutal, not-so-distant past out of which a new standard of fairness and equality arose. Ages 8â12. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.

Starred review from November 24, 2014
Set during the Freedom Summer of 1964, the second installment of Wiles’s Sixties Trilogy begins as hundreds of civil rights activists descend on the town of Greenwood, Miss. to help disenfranchised black citizens overcome voting hurdles erected by local officials. The town is grappling with racial tension, and 12-year-old Sunny Fairchild and her brother are caught in the middle during a late-night adventure at a public swimming pool that bans African-Americans—including the young Raymond, whom Sunny and her brother meet. The story makes for a superb audiobook. Chapters are interwoven with re-created sound bites of reports, speeches, and radio announcements made to sound like authentic primary sources. Asward narrates Sunny’s chapters with a friendly Southern twang and youthful energy that captures the character perfectly. Battiste provides an equally engaging, and at times solemn and reflective, Raymond. Listeners will be enthralled. Ages 8–12. A Scholastic hardcover.

This second book in Wiles's Sixties Trilogy focuses on the Freedom Summer of 1964. A documentary fiction format that tells the story of three young people of Mississippi is interspersed with sound clips and re-enactments of real events. The cast performs ably, and the story is compelling, but the audiobook struggles with its format. A sixteen-minute prologue (a sound montage that takes the listener back to the sixties) leads to the story of Gillette, Sunny, and Raymond (kids--two white and one black), which is interwoven with more extended historical interludes between chapters. With such a busy structure, the story fails to flow. This is a book that works better in print, a medium that allows the reader to both control the pace and examine the documents of the era while experiencing the story. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine


Employing an audio documentary approach, the second of Wiles's Sixties Trilogy focuses on Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Narrator Stacey Aswad--sounding by turns youthfully petulant, excited, and fearful--captures the spirit of 12-year-old Sunny, who is struggling to come to terms with her newly blended family, yearning for her own mother, and learning to rise above the bigotry of well-loved family members and friends. Raymond, an African-American boy who is frustrated with waiting for life in the Jim Crow South to improve, is skillfully portrayed by Francois Battiste's accurate inflection and pacing. Voices of additional characters, news clips, songs of the Civil Rights movement, and other background material adding to the period authenticity are read by Robin Miles and JD Jackson, among others. S.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine