A first novel that affectingly details the bittersweet last summer
of childhood, often treating the grimmer events - polio, race, and
death - with a cursory, even jaunty vigor. "Tab" (Tabitha) Rutland,
the narrator, lives in a small Alabama town. It's 1954, school is
over, and summer stretches ahead. Though this is Tab's favorite
season, it's also polio time, and, as a precaution, swimming pools
and the movie house are closed. Tab, a sixth grader, is enjoying an
era when boys are still only fellow football players, not potential
dates, and when fun is imagining you're Roy Rogers, building forts.
With her new friend Maudie, the daughter of a neighbor's
African-American maid, Tab builds "Fort Polio" in a kudzu vine
thicket where the two observe the transactions of the local
moonshine maker; Tab takes a dangerous fishing trip to make money
so Maudie can buy school supplies; and she gets caught up in the
less benevolent side of town life. Meanwhile, Tab's "intellectual"
mother doesn't get on with her mother-in-law or the locals. In
fact, Tab looks on as Mrs. Poovey, head of the prestigious Ladies
Help League that collects money for polio victims, humiliatingly
rejects her mother's application for membership. A neighbor dies
suddenly and John, her clever young son, a friend of Tab's, must
move in with relatives who don't appreciate his brilliance. And it
is Tab who discovers, when Mrs. Poovey suddenly leaves town, the
scandalous reason for her departure. But only when school starts,
and Maudie comes down with polio and is sent away, never to be seen
again, does Tab realize her childhood has ended. Despite some
unevenness, a coming-of-age story that deftly evokes a time of
blissfully ordinary comforts. (Kirkus Reviews)
In an Alabama town in the early 1950s during the last polio summer before the Salk vaccine, ten-year-old Tabitha "Tab" Rutland is about to have the time of her life. Although movie theaters and pools have been closed to stem the epidemic, Tab, a tomboy with a passion for Roy Rogers, still seeks adventure with her best friend Maudie May, "the lightest brown colored person" she knows. Now as they meddle with the local bootlegger, Mr. Jake, row out on the Tennessee River to land the biggest catfish ever, and snoop into the town's darkest secrets, Tab sets out to be a hero...and comes of age in an unforgettable confrontation with human frailty, racial injustice, and the healing power of love.
Special Reading Group Guide Inside
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