Midnight Without a Moon

Gr 4-8—Life in a sharecropper's shack on a cotton plantation in Mississippi during the summer of 1955 is harsh and unyielding, especially for 13-year-old Rose Lee Carter. Rose lives under the guardianship of her grandmother, who openly mocks her looks and favors her lighter-skinned cousin. Opening with a tense scene of brother Fred Lee's birth and Rose's terrifying encounter with local white supremacists, readers are immediately drawn into the deep poverty and racism that Rose faces on a constant basis. Although conditions at home, physical and emotional, are hard to bear, she enjoys a strong friendship with the son of the local preacher, Hallelujah Jenkins. African Americans registering to vote are routinely harassed—and the murder of Emmett Till reverberates through the community as feelings of anger and fear intensify. Rose is a relatable, endearing, and fully developed character. Her heartaches are striking and acute. The change from her fervent desire to join her mother and stepfather in Chicago to her determination to stay in Mississippi and join the fight for civil rights is believably heroic. Descriptions of the family's severe poverty are shattering but never salacious. Preferential treatment for lighter-skinned African Americans in Rose's family and even in the mainstream African American media is painfully depicted. Recommend for fans of Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming and Mildred Taylor's "Logan Family" saga. VERDICT An unflinching and sensitively-told coming-of-age story from the perspective of a smart and thoughtful young girl in 1950s Mississippi.—Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier County Public Library, Warrenton, VA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Washington Post 2017 KidsPost Summer Book Club selection!
New York Public Library Best Books for Kids!

"Jackson pulls no punches in the characters' heated discussions and keeps dialogue raw and real..." —Bulletin

"Jackson's debut does an excellent job dramatizing the injustice that was epidemic in the pre-civil rights South and capturing the sounds and sensibilities of that time and place. Her sympathetic characters and their stories will make this thoughtful book especially good for classroom use." —Booklist

"A powerful story." —Kirkus

"This nuanced coming-of-age story by a debut author is deftly delivered, with engaging characters set against a richly contextualized backdrop of life for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. It's also an authentic work of historical fiction...about a pivotal incident in the civil rights movement." —Horn Book

"An unflinching and sensitively-told coming-of-age story from the perspective of a smart and thoughtful young girl in 1950s Mississippi." —SLJ

"Midnight Without a Moon offers readers an unflinching bird's eye view of 1955 Mississippi. Young Rose Lee has one foot steeped in the segregated South and the other in the new world where Negroes and girls are expecting more, doing more, and willing to risk all to live lives of their own choosing. Bravo to Jackson, for a magnificent piece of writing!"
—Sharon G. Flake, Coretta Scott King Award winning author of Unstoppable Octobia May and The Skin I'm In

"Rose shines bright in the darkness — brave, beautiful, and full of hard-won hope. She'll be an inspiration to every reader who meets her, as she has been to me." -Caroline Starr Rose, author of May B and Blue Birds