In the summer of 1945, 11-year-old Lily Wagner's daddy takes the "Whites Only" sign off the front door of the family grocery store in quiet Mayfield, South Carolina.
Lily's world is turned upside-down: the store is vandalized and she loses her best friend, whose father forbids him from hanging around a-well, the word he uses turns Lily's stomach.
Hazel Jackson loves school and reading more than anything. She doesn't think it's fair that she has to go to work with Ma Maybelle at the white family's house for the summer. But she knows that the rules for an 11-year-old Black girl are different.
When Lily and Hazel meet, they know they probably can't be friends. But they forge a connection through books that helps them learn about themselves and the world around them, including hard truths of the Jim Crow South.
Fans of
The Hundred Dresses
by Eleanor Estes and
Stella by Starlight
by Sharon M. Draper will love the story of Lily and Hazel as they stand up to racism in their small town.