Under a Cardboard Sky

It’s 1959. Laura Graham, a fifteen-year-old white girl, moves with her family from the urban north to her father’s hometown in rural Kentucky where she enrolls in a recently desegregated high school. She makes a good start at adjusting-she tries to lose her Yankee accent, she makes friends, and she falls in love. But the bullying and injustice her Black classmates suffer leave her torn between wanting to speak out and fear of losing what friends she has. When entrenched racism results in tragedy, Laura finally claims the power of her voice only to discover how little she truly understands about the world into which she has been thrust. Told with heart and touches of humor, this YA novel is grounded in history and in the author’s personal experience.