![]() ![]() ![]() True courage means whistling as you go past the graveyard, or, as Starla explains her Daddy’s teaching, something you do when you want to keep your mind off your most “worstest” fear.Īs I read, I experienced many moments when my heart went out to little Starla. They also learn that courage does not consist of not being afraid. Together, these two people who are both hurting and damaged in their own ways, learn to reach out and look out for each other. Even as they battle challenges they never imagined, Eula learns to stand up for herself and Starla learns that family ties are stronger than the ties of birth and that they are forged when people choose to love one another in spite of the odds.Īlong the way, Starla, who has a knack for stretching the truth, discovers truths she never knew of, truths that force her to do her growing up in a hurry. The trip gets dangerous, but Starla and Eula are each determined to protect the other and the baby. Eula, the baby and Starla then make their way to Nashville where Starla hopes to help Eula and be a real family with her Daddy and Momma.įrom them on begins their epic and adventurous journey as Starla realises the harsh and cruel realities of being black in the South. At Eula’s home, her enraged and abusive husband, Wallace, nearly kills Starla twice, but Eula hits him on the head to save Starla, and ends up killing him. On the way, she is picked up by a young black woman named Eula, who has just picked up an abandoned white baby off the church steps. Secure in the knowledge that her mother will solve all her problems and love her as she longs to be loved. With nothing but the clothes on her back and the shoes on her feet, and no idea about where her Momma is in Nashville, she sets out anyway. When Starla’s best attempts to conform to Mamie’s wishes fail and the threat of Reform school looms large, she impulsively decides to run away from her home in Mississippi and go to her mother in Nashville. Starla is tired of the restrictions that she is placed under and of the grandmother who makes no attempt to hide her hatred for her or her ‘trashy’ mother. Her Daddy works on an oil rig in the Gulf and her Momma ran away from home when Starla was three to become a country music singer. All of 9½ years old during the summer of 1963, this third-grade student finds herself coming to terms with the realities of being black and white in America’s Deep South.Ĭonstantly suffering verbal and even physical abuse at the hands of Mamie, her grandmother, Starla feels totally unloved. Starla Claudelle is the kind of narrative voice you never want to stop listening to. ![]()
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