Alligator bayou

By Donna Jo Napoli

Subjects: Italian americans, fiction, Historical Fiction, Italian Americans, Race relations, fiction, Uncles in fiction, Uncles, Country life, Reading Level-Grade 12, Race relations in fiction, Reading Level-Grade 9, Prejudices, Historical fiction, Reading Level-Grade 8, Louisiana, fiction, Prejudices in fiction, Reading Level-Grade 7, Louisiana in fiction, Fiction, Country life, fiction, Children's fiction, Reading Level-Grade 11, Juvenile fiction, Family, fiction, History, Reading Level-Grade 10, Italian Americans in fiction, Country life in fiction, Race relations, Prejudices, fiction

Description: Talullah, Louisiana. 1899.Calogero, his uncles, and cousins are six Sicilian men living in the small town of Tallulah, Louisiana. They work hard, growing vegetables and selling them at their stand and in their grocery store.To 14-year-old Calogero, newly arrived from Sicily, Tallulah is a lush world full of contradictions, hidden rules, and tension between the Negro and white communities. He's startled and thrilled by the danger of a 'gator hunt in the midnight bayou, and by his powerful feelings for Patricia, a sharpwitted, sweet-natured Negro girl. Some people welcome the Sicilians. Most do not. Calogero's family is caught in the middle: the whites don't see them as equal, but befriending Negroes is dangerous. Every day brings Calogero and his family closer to a a terrifying, violent confrontation.From the Hardcover edition.