cover image North Town

North Town

Lorenz Graham. Boyds Mills Press, $16.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-59078-162-3

In the words of Rudine Sims Bishop, from her foreword, Lorenz Graham ""helped pave the way for the development of contemporary African American literature for children and young adults"" with his Town novels-South Town; North Town; Whose Town?; and Return to South Town. The four books span 15 years in the life of their protagonist, David Williams, whom readers first meet as a 15-year-old in the rural south of the 1950s. The first title chronicles a dangerous summer for David, when an act of heroism backfires under the constant pressure caused by the bigotry and Jim Crow laws that control his daily life. In North Town, although David's family has moved to a Northern city where racial divisions are less obvious, bigotry makes David's dream of becoming a doctor seem even more remote. Racial violence becomes more pronounced in Whose Town?, as the civil rights movement gathers momentum. Return to South Town features an adult David and his effort to become the first practicing black doctor in his hometown.