Truth with a Capital T

October 1, 2010

Sharing her Tweedle, Ga., grandparents with her newly adopted and only slightly younger Northern—and African-American—cousin is not what Caucasian narrator Maebelle had in mind for her summer. She's still a bit ego-bruised from knowing that she'll start middle school in a regular—not gifted-and-talented—class, and Isaac's extraordinary competence on the jazz trumpet is hard to take. While Isaac and their musical grandparents plan a performance for the town's Anniversary Spectacular, Maebelle grapples with her mixed feelings of protectiveness and resentment toward Isaac. A mystery about the closed-off wing in her grandparents' inherited plantation mansion grabs her attention—one of the town's most prominent 19th-century citizens seems to have figured in some kind of clandestine comings and goings. The somber acknowledgment of the town's slave-holding past is contrasted with a present in which racism and bigotry are not unknown, but there are no easy villains, and Maebelle's is not the only family where black and white come together. Lots of elements here, and most fit together smoothly and treat the nicely drawn cast of characters with depth and dimension. (Fiction. 9-11)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2010

Gr 4-6-Eleven-year-old Maebelle is excited about spending the summer in rural Georgia with her grandparents, who are country music singers, until she discovers that her adopted African-American cousin, Isaac, who is a 10-year-old trumpet prodigy, has also been invited. Maebelle's grandparents have inherited a home from an eccentric aunt who locked one wing of the house to hide a family secret. Maebelle desperately wants to uncover the mystery but is strictly forbidden to enter the area. The story begins slowly as the cousins vie for their grandparents' attention and play with friends and neighbors. The last few chapters reveal the secret, which is connected to the original owners of the house, their slaves, and the Underground Railroad. The real story isn't so much the mystery but the two very different cousins learning to get along and appreciate one another. The children are fairly well developed, and the grandparents are believable. However, the author has tried to make the characters sound Southern in their speech, but has done it in a way that detracts from the story rather than enhancing it.-Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2010
Grades 5-8 Hopefully, Maebelle can get the summer she needs in tiny Tweadle, Georgia, enjoying time with her doting, fun-loving grandparents while her parents go on a book tour. Maebelle feels she has no talents (she was cut from her schools gifted program) and just wants to escape into her amazing fact book and try to impress the world with her erudition. When her newly adopted cousin, Isaac, shows up for the summer, her hopes are dashed. Isaac is a charming trumpet prodigy with a knack for attracting positive attention. Then the cousins discover their inherited antebellum mansion is full of family secrets in addition to containing a gold mine of evidence about the Underground Railroad. Hegedus nicely blends the historic background with the contemporary strand as Maebelles confidence slowly grows in this strong story about peer competition, race in a small town, and coming to terms with family history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)