Boston was nothing like South Carolina. Up there, colored folks could go anywhere they wanted. Folks didn't wait for church to dress in their fancy clothes. Fancy was just life. Mama was a city girl . . . and now I was going to be one too. It's 1944, and in a small Southern town, eleven-year-old Ella spends her summers running wild with her cousins and friends. But life isn't always so sunny. The deep racial tension that simmers beneath their town's peaceful facade never quite goes away, and Ella misses her mama - a beautiful jazz singer, who lives in Boston. So when an invitation arrives to come to Boston for a visit Ella is ecstatic - and the trip proves life-changing in more ways than one. For the first time, Ella sees what life outside of segregation is like, and begins to dream of a very different future. But her happiness is shattered when she returns home to the news that her classmate has been arrested for the murder of two white girls - and nothing will ever be the same again.A beautifully written and deeply moving story about finding and fighting for your place in the world.

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 9-12 years.

There are 256 pages in this book. This book was published in 2019 by Penguin Random House Children's UK .

Karyn Parsons is perhaps best known for her role as Will Smith's ditsy cousin Hilary Banks in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . Karyn has gone on to found Sweet Blackberry, an award-winning foundation which shares stories about unsung black heroes in history, and How High The Moon is Karyn's self-authored debut novel. She lives and works in New York.