Tru & Nelle

August 15, 2017
In the sequel to Tru & Nelle (2016), Christmas in tiny Monroeville, Alabama, is hardly jolly. Drawing on real-life characters, places, and events to create a fictional world for Nelle Harper Lee and Truman Capote (Scout and Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird), Neri covers three different Christmases, a narrative arc allowing him to follow the two white children to adulthood. In the first scene, 10 days before Christmas in 1935, 11-year-old Truman returns home for a custody hearing that sends him right back to New York City with his parents. Two years later, he shows up again--having escaped from a military academy--and renews his friendship with Nelle, kisses her for the first time (though he reveals his first kiss was with a boy), antagonizes the son of the ex-Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and witnesses racism firsthand when Nelle's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, loses an unfair trial of black defendants unjustly accused. In the brief final section 19 years later, Truman is now a famous writer, and Nelle receives a financial gift that allows her time to write and, in time, also becomes a famous writer. Readers don't need to know To Kill a Mockingbird to find themselves immersed in the goings-on in Monroeville. An absorbing story of true friends in troubled times. (author's note, acknowledgments, recipe) (Historical fiction. 10-12)

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October 1, 2017

Gr 4-7-As in Neri's first book about the real-life Truman Capote and Harper Lee, middle grade readers will laugh, cry, and be surprised by the many unlikely situations these preteens seem to find for themselves and their families. Neri uses real events from the Christmas seasons of 1935, 1937, and 1956 to weave his tales. In 1935, Tru is given the choice to stay in Monroeville, AL, or return to New York with his mother. Two years after choosing the latter, Tru finds himself running away from military school to return to his relatives in Monroeville, only to find their house in flames. Tru and his friends have a run-in with a bully over a Christmas tree and watch a murder trial unfold that could end in a lynching by the Ku Klux Klan. They ultimately celebrate the holidays in jail with the men convicted of murder. By 1957, Truman and Nelle, now adults, are both living in New York City. With the Great Depression as a backdrop, this title will be most enjoyed by readers of historical fiction. VERDICT A definite purchase for fans of the first book.-Elizabeth Kahn, Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy, Avondale, LA

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