The strength of this book is the way the author brings the reader into the world of a few characters and their families in the racially divided South during 1963. The actions and dialogue are real, consistent and interesting, but the I found myself wondering where this book …more was going just a few chapters from the end. Then, in a matter of fact way the book has first an arrest of a white boy trying to sneak his black friend into a drive in theater, then the stroke of an outspoken racist white woman and the death of a favorite dancing chicken pet. Without warning the white boy gets his dream of being on a TV variety show with his band and the black boy comes of age as a jazz pianist. The real clinching moment is when the white boy goes off script and plays a black James Brown song on the variety, for the love or music or for protest, and the young black musician realizes he is, and forever will be a jazz musician as he plays his own arrangement of Blue Monk in a jazz club.Excellently done! (less)