Integration and Inequality: Mid-1900s Midwest American History, As Told by Modern Youth Literature

Abstract

Integration and Inequality:Mid-1900s Midwest American History, As Told by Modern Youth Literature Heather J. Matthews (bio) Cline-Ransome, Lesa. Finding Langston. Holiday House, 2018. 112 pp. $10.99 pb. ISBN 9780823445820. Cline-Ransome, Lesa. Leaving Lymon. Holiday House, 2020. 208 pp. $17.99 hc. ISBN 9780823444427. Cutler, Jane. Susie Q Fights Back. Holiday House, 2018. 112 pp. $6.99 pb. ISBN 9780823439935. As I approach reviewing three children's texts on the subject of race and representation, many Americans are taking to the streets to protest lifetimes of brutality and inequality that stifles Black people and a legal and judicial system that continues to be unequal and unfair. Racism, however, is not just an issue for adults—children are affected by issues of racial and ethnic inequality, and yet many adults are unwilling to talk about these realities with children. In reviewing Susie Q Fights Back, Finding Langston, and Leaving Lymon, it became clear to me that texts such as these need to be available to young readers to facilitate discussions with them about race. Adults must be willing to have difficult and uncomfortable discussions about race and inequality with children, and it is my belief that the above texts can be tools to aid in this discussion. These three middle-grade texts tackle difficult topics with effective and appropriate writing and without minimizing the harsh realities of the American Midwest in the mid-1900s. These fictional, first person novels feature brave and realistic characters doing their best in a system that privileges white children over children of colour. The main characters must come to grips with the fact that they are forced into a place within society, and each must decide for themselves what concepts such as equality, justice, and fairness truly mean. Despite any number of odds stacked against them, such as systemic racism or generational poverty and trauma, each main character struggles and perseveres to create a space for themselves. [End Page 188] Jane Cutler's Susie Q Fights Back, published in hardcover as Susan Marcus Bends the Rules, tells the story of Susan Marcus, a young white girl who has just moved from New York City, New York, to Clayton, Missouri, with her mother and father. Set in the year 1943, Susie is thrust from the diverse northern city she calls home to a small midwestern town where Jim Crow laws are still strictly enforced. Readers learn that Susie is Jewish, and she befriends a young white Christian girl in her building named Marlene as well as a young Black girl who lives close by named Loretta. Susie, Marlene, and Loretta quickly develop a friendship based in the indignation that Loretta is not treated the same as Susie and Marlene, and the three girls set out to "defy" Jim Crow. The girls take a stand together, finding a legal loophole in the segregation rules that allows them to elude legal restrictions and celebrate their friendship in public. The author, Jane Cutler, modelled some of this story on her own experiences as a young white Jewish girl who moved from New York to the American Midwest as a child. Susie Q Fights Back, a PJ Our Way book, was promoted by the PJ Library, which—along with the middle-school branch of PJ Our Way—sends books with Jewish content to families in Canada and the US free of charge ("What Is"). As a PJ Our Way book, Susie Q Fights Back was a promoted title distributed to young readers. Lesa Cline-Ransome's Finding Langston and Leaving Lymon exist in the same universe as one another and thus share some settings and characters. Cline-Ransome, a Black author, first wrote Finding Langston, which tells the story of Langston, a young Black boy who has recently moved from a small town in Alabama to Chicago with his father. The impetus for their move, the recent death of Langston's mother, haunts both father and son, as both miss her in their own ways. Compounding this fact, as he is still wearing his Alabama "country clothing" and speaking with his Alabama accent, Langston finds socializing in school difficult. Adding to Langston's school troubles is his...