The Rock and the River

The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

I was drawn to this book by its subject matter: the shift in the Civil Rights movement away from the sit-ins

and marches of the early 1960s to the more militant, separatist ideology of the late 1960s. At the heart of the book are two young men, Sam and his older brother "Stick", who are the sons of a prominent Civil Rights activist growing up in Chicago. The conflict centers on the older brother's move away from the methods of his father as he gravitates to the Black Panther Party.

All in all, I wasn't too impressed by this book. The characters seemed pretty flat, the dialogue stilted and unrealistic, and the storyline too simplistic. While I appreciate the author's attempt to dramatize for young readers this very important and interesting time period, she failed, for me at least, to create a realistic alternate reality that seemed life-like for me. I just couldn't get lost in the book because it didn't seem real.