Anyone interested in reading Coming of Age in Mississippi?

[Ava Catherine]

I will read it with you, Judy.

[Cherie]

I will read it with you. I will have to see if I can find it.

[Ava Catherine]

Oh, Cherie, I am so happy you are joining us! ; )

[Ann]

I'll join with you to read it. It sounds interesting.

[Ann]

Sorry, I'm not going to be able to join you. It seems my library system doesn't have a copy of the book!

[Cherie]

I am still waiting for my copy from the Library, Judy. I will let you know when I get it and start reading. I did not get a notice today, so maybe it will show up by Monday.

[Ava Catherine]

I have had a copy forever, but now I have to find where I put it! I want to read with the group when I locate my copy. I have so many bookcases, and I moved all my gopher piles when I cleaned out my study, so now I am at a loss. Oh dear me!!! lol

I shall return!

[Ann]

I know. Maybe someday I will come across it. I will put it on my list of yard sale/book sale "look fors" for the spring and summer!

[Ava Catherine]

OK. I have located my book and read the first chapter.

I looked up the location of her childhood home in Mississippi, and she lived about as far from me as you can get. I live in the northeast section of the state, and she grew up in the extreme southwest corner of the state in a very, very small town.

I read that she was born in 1940, so she would have been living in her first home in 1944 when the book opens. I find it interesting that she calls her first home a plantation when her parents were sharecropping. Most people in the South would say that she was living on a farm even if it was a large farm and her parents worked for a landowner. In the South the word plantation is traditionally used to refer to antebellum homes (Civil War). I assume she used the word plantation for emphasis on the para-slavery system (sharecropping) which bonded the worker to the "planter" or landowner. If one sharecropped, there was no way to get ahead. Owning one's land was the only way to get ahead in the South during this period. If possible, you never sold your land, and you always bought as much land as you could. I have heard older people in the South say, "They aren't making any more land. "

[Ava Catherine]

I am just beginning the second section and am liking it as well.

(view spoiler)[I was glad to see her daddy come through for her when he brought the perfect blue dress when she was elected Homecoming Queen. It was sad that they were so awkward with each other and couldn't bring themselves to say what was in their hearts. (hide spoiler)]

I keep wondering about her mom having all these kids and such difficulty feeding and clothing them.Didn't they practice birth control at all during this time period? Did they want nine children?

[Ava Catherine]

I know that they didn't have the pill, but did they not have condoms? Just wondering. I guess Raymond wasn't interested in birth control. I read that Anne is the oldest of 9 children. Wow, that is a houseful! Mama did seem proud of her babies, but then she had to work so hard to take care of them.

(view spoiler)[I have finished the book, too. Due to her cynicism and overuse of hyperbole, I am somewhat suspicious of Anne's bias. Although Anne comes across as bitter in these sections, I love the book and Anne's honesty, and if I had endured some of the terrible atrocities at the hands of racist whites that she and her people did, I would feel bitter, too. Her hatred of the white man is quite evident in the last sections, and I am not sure that such a generalization is not racist in its own way even though we understand the cause. Anne's desire to take power from the white man is a constant philosophy in her life although, thankfully, there are whites who are generous to her. We know that the majority of white racists have self-image problems and need to see themselves superior to another group, even if the reason is imaginary. However, understanding the cause does not excuse racism in any form. (hide spoiler)]

I have two friends who participated in the Freedom Marches, and they do not have this bitterness or hate for whites. They are wary at first of showing or discussing this aspect of their lives. One told me first by telling me he was a " subversive" in his college days. He was trying to see how I would react before he went any further. He is now a principal of a high school in Tennessee. My other friend is a black minster's wife and has three children. Her husband was wounded in Vietnam. When she was pregnant with her first child, she was in the city shopping and needed to go to the bathroom, but the bathrooms were still "Whites Only" in the stores. Her husband begged the shopkeeper to let his wife to go to bathroom, but they refused. She wet herself on the way to the car and cried on the way home. I still cry when I think about her humiliation. She is one of the kindest, sweetest women I know. She was one of the first teachers I met when I started teaching, and we became great friends in a short period of time. I wish I could go back and change things and make people behave decently.

I feel so deeply sorry for Anne all the way through the book. She grew up in such deep, crippling poverty. Poverty that most people have never known, and I cannot begin to imagine. She was born after the depression and during WWII, so the economy was better, but her family was always struggling just to eat and have clothing.

I was also struck by how quickly she seemed to mature. I think that being the oldest and living in poverty forced her to take on more than her share of work for the family than she would have otherwise. Being very intelligent worked in her favor so that she could do her school work and manage work after school. Hunger was a great motivator, too.

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights RevolutionDiane McWhorter

Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy Paul Hendrickson

These are excellent books about the Civil Rights era in the South.

[Cherie]

I picked up my book from the library this afternoon and sat in the parking lot and read the 1st section. I cannot wait to get home to read more after work, but I have several things going all at once and I need to clear them off before I go any farther. I have 5 other library books and 1 on CD that I am half way through, AND I started listening to Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table on audio - Amy loved the guy's voice that is reading it, so I said I wanted to listen to it. LOL! It IS great and I have already listened to 2/3rds of it. We have had a little nice weather and my yard is calling to me too.

[Ava Catherine]

My goodness, Cherie. You are a busy girl! I have to warn you that this book got under my skin, and I couldn't read it in small increments like I had intended. There was something about this book that kept me reading. Maybe it was because I was cheering for her and wanting good things to happen for her.

We'll chat when you are ready. So glad you have a copy!!!

[Ava Catherine]

Judy, (view spoiler)[ I think that is what is troubling me most about the book. (her desire to grandiosity) I have a great sense of respect and compassion for the blacks in the South who endured the horrific violence and a daily, grinding humiliation. Sometimes I think this daily humiliation would have actually been worse because it would have slowly eaten away at the soul and the person's identity. But then again I think of the cruel acts blacks suffered at the hands of whites, and it is almost too much to bear. Even today one wants to scream."Why?" It makes me cringe to think that such a thing could happen in a so-called democracy. (hide spoiler)]

But then thinking of rights, women, too, didn't get the right to vote until 1920.

This book brings so many questions and issues to mind, and it makes me so sad. I literally want to sit down and weep.

(view spoiler)[What did you think of the section on Emmett Till's murder and how it affected Anne and her family?
I thought this was a turning point for Anne, especially when her mom became so afraid to discuss anything connected with the event even forbidding Anne to mention Till. When Anne realized that the blacks in her town were too fearful to discuss Till's murder or do anything about it, I think this was the catalyst propelling her toward the Movement. When the other blacks were murdered in her town, and the black people just shuffled off and closed their doors, I think that just confirmed her previous beliefs that change had to come from outside the town, and she wanted to be part of the change. (hide spoiler)]


Judy, believe it or not, we actually had snow Friday night. My red maple tree had started leafing out, and I was so excited, but now that we have to start at square one again. I am so anxious for spring to come and some little buds to jump up and say, "Hello" again! : )
Now, Judy, we didn't have snow like you have snow. Thank goodness! I saw on the news that you were really having a difficult time with snowstorms this past month. Maybe March will be better for you, too.
I think Cherie may have the best weather of all of us right now! lol

[Cherie]

I finally got a chance to read a little bit at lunch time today. I finished the 1st two chapters. I do like the writing. It is very easy to read.

It is so hard to imagine the children living like they do and being left alone all day with nothing to eat but beans or pone, and moving constantly from one house to another.

I was reading another book like this where the children were left alone all day and the older one, 4 and 5 years old, took care of the babies, but I cannot remember which book it was. I know my daughter and I talked about it a lot at the time. I remember them having to stay in bed all day, wearing all of their clothes and covered with every blanket and rag they had to keep from freezing to death.

I am sorry I cannot share the weather with you, Judy. It is back to rain and cold after two or three days of mild temps and a little sunshine.

[Cherie]

Because of the snakes? Yes!
And about the tin can heater? Yikes!
(view spoiler)[I liked how she thought the white sand in their front yard was so pretty until she saw the people laughing at her baby brother and sister naked, playing in it (hide spoiler)]

[AmyK]

Cherie wrote: "I was reading another book like this where the children were left alone all day and the older one, 4 and 5 years old, took care of the babies, but I cannot remember which book it was. I know my daughter and I talked about it a lot at the time. I remember them having to stay in bed all day, wearing all of their clothes and covered with every blanket and rag they had to keep from freezing to death"

Wasn't that in the Van Gogh book...and they had a stick and a string to play with.

[Cherie]

AmyK wrote: "Cherie wrote: "I was reading another book like this where the children were left alone all day and the older one, 4 and 5 years old, took care of the babies, but I cannot remember which book it was..."

I had to look back over my book reviews, but I think it was in Glow ,Amy, where they played with the stick and the string and the children stayed in bed all day to keep warm. :)

[Cherie]

I am not sure that she felt lonely, but more that she did not fit in. I am up to Chapter 7 now.

I thought the basketball team experience was very funny. I am dating myself, but I remember playing by the same rules with only the 3 bounces on the dribble.
I played in middle school and 9th grade before they changed the rules. I was always a guard because I was tall and could not hit the basket to save my life, except a free throw once in a while. My high school coach always told me that I had slow feet.

The whole farming experience was just too much! To work like that day after day, and not even make enough to buy food or clothing. I think she is on the right track to try to figure out what she can do with her education to not get pulled down into the same life that her mother has had. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

[Cherie]

Hmm, I will have to pay more attention to her tone. I caught a lot of her anger at her mother and others. I did not translate that into being lonely. Good point. I did not have a chance to read last night.

[Jkmays]

Well, you have made me put this on my TBR list. But I want to save it for later. I think I might be reading a big F-author next for my alphabet.

[Lynn]

Yeah, this conversation has made me put it on my TBR list too :)

[Ava Catherine]

I think she had to feel lonely because she didn't fit in at school, and she had to work after school and at home. She never really had a chance to be the child in the family. When her stepfather's family refused to accept her mother and the children from her mother's previous marriage into the family, it had to hurt Anne deeply. That sense of always scrabbling and scratching to try to earn a little extra money and never belonging must have left a deep scar on her soul.

Some of the whites she worked for were good and generous to Anne, but a few were racists and mistreated her. The way she suffered at their hands was part of the reason she turned against whites for the rest of her life.

[Ava Catherine]

Absolutely, Judy!
I cannot imagine living in her shoes day after day with so little joy. She must have felt as if her soul weighed a thousand pounds.

[Cherie]

I woke up early this morning and read for a while, but could not get to the end. I finally finished the book at lunch time today. I have not written a review yet. I am still trying to work out how I felt at the end. I was 'googling' some of the acronyms she used for all of the groups that they were involved with. Of course I knew what NAACP stood for, but I did not really recognize the others.

I have re-read through all of the entries and read the spoilers, but I am still not sure how I really feel about the book. I liked it, but I am not sure I want to give it 4 stars. I cannot imagine growing up like she did, and it is horrifying how the blacks were treated by the whites. What I found even more astonishing is how badly the blacks treated each other!
post edited to remove commentCLR

[Cherie]

I have slapped myself for my attitued about this book and my initial reaction to how to put into words how to engage into a discussion about it.

The book is amazing and does deserve 5 stars. It is not amazing that I want to read it over and over, but that it was written at all, and so well.

The subject matter is hard. There is so much in this story that is hard to inagine and understand. I know it is true. I know that the author lived it. It is so sad. Her family was so sad and dysfunctional. They all worked so hard, to have so little money to buy food and things that they needed to survive.

The fear was the hardest for me to grasp. How they could all live in such constant fear all of the time.

[Cherie]

There were a lot of little things Anne mentioned that impressed me. As much as she did not like the lady she worked for (that sold the clabbered milk), she was willing to work for it to help out the family. I did not get the impression that her mother had made her do it. I liked how she shared her quarters with her brother and sister.

She worked hard to help provide for the family, but for her own self too. With the exception of Wayne's mother, most of the white people she worked for admired her and tried to help her. I was imperssed at how one person in a generation of whites was so different from the next. One was mean and had such a terrible attitude about the negros, and the next did not, or vice a versa. The people in The Help were like this.

I was mostly disgusted at how her mother treated her and used her. I did not understand her at all. I felt very bad throughout most of the book at the relaionship between Anne and her mother and most of her family. They were all so emotionally deprived.

[Cherie]

I know that you are right, Judy. People keep doing things the same way, over and over, and never seem to be able to break out of the box that they are in. I am sure Anne's mother wanted things to be different, but could not because she was so trapped, emotionally and physically. It was too bad that she was so focused on her need to be accepted. I did understand why they did some of the things they did.