 | Black Star (Door Of No Return) Author: Alexander, Kwame | |
| Price: $7.37 | ||
Summary:
Twelve-year old Black girl Charley, who dreams of becoming the first professional female pitcher, must navigate adolescence during the turbulent segregation era and the beginning of the Great Migration.
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (+) (08/01/24)
School Library Journal (+) (00/10/24)
Booklist (+) (07/01/24)
The Hornbook (00/09/24)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 07/01/2024 *Starred Review* There's an awful lot going on in this second installment of Newbery winner Alexander's Door of No Return trilogy. Told in verse, the story picks up with 12-year-old Charley, Kofi's grandaughter. Charley wants to be the first woman professional baseball pitcher—a somewhat doubtful avocation for an asthmatic Black girl living down south during the 1920s and segregation. When Charley and her next-door neighbor Willie get tricked into a baseball showdown against the local bully, they try to scrape together a team, all against a backdrop of plot elements involving Nana Kofi's commitment to Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement, Charley's encounter with Mary McLeod Bethune, and, despite her mother's attempts to protect her, Charley's growing awareness of discrimination and racism, including lynching. The action culminates with Charley's rash decision to move the baseball contest to a whites-only field, resulting in a white boy being injured. This brings out the Klan in retribution, and the book ends as Charley, her mother, Nana Kofi, and Willie flee, driving north while Willie's house burns and Charley's father stays behind to try to save their home. Powerful and realistic, this continuing saga offers heartbreaking portrayals of the African American experience. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
