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History of Southland College |
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Starred Review. Grade 5-9–Cushman creates another introspective female character who is planted firmly in her time and who grows in courage, self-awareness, and conviction. This novel follows Francine's eighth-grade year, from August 1949 to June 1950, at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles, a year of changes largely inspired by a new transfer student, Sophie Bowman. While Francine is quiet and committed to staying out of trouble, happy to daydream of Hollywood movie stars and to follow her father's advice not to get involved in controversy, Sophie questions authority and wants to make a difference. Her questioning of the nuns' disparaging comments about the Godless communists frequently leads to her being punished and eventually to her expulsion from school. Francine begins to examine her own values, particularly when an actor friend of Sophie's father is blacklisted and Mr. Bowman loses his scriptwriting job. At the novel's end, Francine is poised to stand up to Sister Basil, the bullying principal, and exercise her freedom of speech. Cushman captures the era well, with references that range from Dragnet to duck and cover drills in schools and her father's aborted attempt to build a bomb shelter in their backyard. Francine Green is reminiscent of Jamie Morse, another 13-year-old and the protagonist of Ellen Levine's Catch a Tiger by the Toe (Viking, 2005), who is also coming of age in the shadow of McCarthyism and the beginnings of the Cold War. Readers will relate to the pervasive fear of the period as it resonates in our post-9/11 world.–Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. |
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