Darkest Corner

The Civil Rights movement makes its way to small-town Mississippi in this well-researched but ultimately disappointing novel, Herschler's first for young adults. Teddy, the narrator, is nine when she stumbles upon the lynching of her best friend's father: ""He was swinging back and forth as if a wind had caught him, and there stood my daddy, my very own daddy, clothed in a bedsheet near a bunch of other men, watching him swing."" The aftermath is briefly documented, and the narrative skips ahead (""Time flew, and the memory settled deep down in my heart a memory that never lost its pain, never lost its spurt of guilt, never lost its power over me"") to other seminal moments in Teddy's coming of age. Against her father's orders, Teddy gets progressively more involved in the Civil Rights struggle, leading up to the summer of the Freedom Riders. Tensions multiply and violence in Teddy's community escalates, but Herschler never quite manages to create an immediate sense of menace, even when describing Klan attacks. Teddy, seen over a period of five years, doesn't seem to change much. This sometimes poignant portrayal of a friendship that survives through turbulent times is overshadowed by the historical background, which takes in such events as Eldridge Cleaver's assassination, lunch counter sit-ins and the Selma-Montgomery Freedom March. These historical milestones ultimately remain more compelling than the story line. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)