A powerful novel that put me in mind of a more sophisticated [b:Stella by Starlight|22546133|Stella by Starlight|Sharon M. Draper|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420938354s/22546133.jpg|42002485]. There are a lot of things to admire about this story: strong characters, vivid historical setting, and a moving premise. Rose faces a central question: Should I stay or should I go? Why stay in the Mississippi Delta when it's so dangerous for black people? Why stay and fight for your rights when you could get killed? How should she judge her relatives that have left Mississippi to go north? And how should she feel about those who seem to accept their lives as second-class citizens?

I would put this on par with [b:Night on Fire|25407290|Night on Fire|Ronald Kidd|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432759913s/25407290.jpg|45161761], which was also a great eye-opener on a subject about which much has already been written. This book is not cliche-ridden. It's not about a perfectly heroic kid overcoming inequality. It's a coming-of-age story about a realistically scared and unsure 13-year-old kid discovering how the world works and trying to decide her place in it.

This is a middle grade book for a relatively mature reader. Someone who can understand how colorism (the privileging of light skin over dark) lives alongside racism. Someone who can understand why the n-word is used both casually and dramatically throughout the book. Someone who can understand how different generations of African American families can feel so differently about white terrorism. It is challenging to read some of the dialect. It is challenging to keep some of the characters straight because they are referred to by different names. It would be helpful to go into this book knowing the story of Emmett Till (so they know it's not fictional). Obviously, there's a lot of violence - not just white terrorism but also domestic violence in Rose's family. It would be a great book club book because there is so much fodder for discussion and analysis.

I took a star off for a few clunky didactic parts that took me out of the story. For example, on page 260, Monty rattles off a pretty long quote from the Emmett Till trial. Later he rattles off the origins of the name Rosa. On page 272 Rose says Monty is a "walking, talking Encyclopedia Britannica." In other words, he's conveniently there to inform the reader. But this is a pretty minor quibble.

I will certainly pick up the sequel and I hope there are many great books to come from Linda Williams Jackson. ( )

The book “Midnight without a Moon” by Linda Jackson is about a 13 year old girl named Rose Carter. She grew up in the south during segregation. This book is based a true story. The intended audience for this book is 10-12 year olds. ( )

t’s Mississippi in the summer of 1955, and Rose Lee Carter can’t wait to move north. For now, she’s living with her sharecropper grandparents on a white man’s cotton plantation. Then, one town over, an African American boy, Emmett Till, is killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. When Till’s murderers are unjustly acquitted, Rose realizes that the South needs a change and that she should be part of the movement. Linda Jackson’s moving debut seamlessly blends a fictional portrait of an African American family and factual events from a famous trial that provoked change in race relations in the United States. ( )

Rosa is a 13 year old girl living with her sharecropping grandparents in Mississippi during Jim Crow. Society dictates a narrow path for her life but she is intelligent and resistant to its strict influence. ( )

This would have been a two-star book, but it got an extra star because the subject matter is important.

Here's what didn't work:

1. The dialect: Using dialect in written dialogue helps establish character and denote time and place. Here, however, it was heavy-handed and more distracting than illuminating.

2. Rose: She spent the entire book wanting nothing more than to leave her small Mississippi town, but, at the very end, with no real explanation, she chooses to stay.

3. Rose's name: In a book about the spark that lit the fire of the Civil Rights movement, calling your protagonist "Rosa" is a little too on-the-nose.

4. The age level: Some of the subject matter and language seemed more appropriate for an older readership (the book's age range is indicated by the publisher as 10-12), but Rose herself often spoke and acted younger than her 13 years. At the very least, this is an upper middle-grade novel, more suited for a 12-14 readership. But, even then, Rose needs to truly be a thirteen-year-old and not continually act like a ten- or eleven-year-old.

5. The self-importance: The subject matter of this book is important, yes, but it was one of those books where you felt the author may have had an over-inflated sense of exactly how important and it leaked through to the writing itself.

6. Info-dumping: There were a lot of explanatory passages where the information imparted may have been better delivered in an author's note or glossary at the end.

As I've mentioned (several times), this book deals with important subject matter and will probably find a place in many classrooms and school libraries. As a book that one would pick up just to read for pleasure, though, it fell short. It's possible for historical fiction to entertain while educating and, for me, this book did not accomplish that feat. ( )