“As the mom of two little girls, stories of women and especially brave little girls fascinate me. I love finding a spunky, strong narrator who possesses qualities I hope (and pray) I am passing onto my daughters. I fell in love with The Secret Life of Bees, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and of course numerous fairy tales. I am now adding to that list Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall, a heart-wrenching tale of nine-year-old Starla Claudelle, who discovers herself on a runaway adventure.
Whistling is a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by Starla. Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom.
Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her alcoholic and abusive husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two.
Author Susan Crandall has nailed the time/political period – 1963 Kennedy Era segregation/civil rights movement in the deep South, but we see it through the lens of young Starla Claudelle, the red-headed heroine who right from the get-go tells us she never thinks before she speaks. Smart and precocious—a combination that gets her into barrels of trouble, some situations simply funny, others much more dark and dangerous. The other thing Crandell has nailed to perfection is the voice of a nine-year-old girl. With my own spunky and precocious 10-year-old girl, I felt Crandell was quoting E with her character of Starla!
This is a wonderful coming of age story that showcases a young heroine who embodies the sacred, powerful, don’t-mess-with-me self-awareness women should embrace — that’s what makes this book so compelling. You can expect to read this in a few days and be sad when you’re finished. This is one of those books – I wish it could go on forever. It’s a compelling and luminous portrait of friendship and compassion.”
Author: Susan Crandall
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Mainstream Fiction
Release Date: 07/02/2013
Pages: 320 ISBN: 978-1476707723