The darkest child
(Book)

Includes an excerpt of Delores Phillips's unfinished sequel to The darkest child, Stumbling blocks.

"A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, with new introduction, excerpt, and discussion guide Pakersfield, Georgia, 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother, Rozelle's, estimation, but she's also the brightest. Rozelle--beautiful, charismatic, and light-skinned--exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment, she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household, whether in domestic service, in the fields, or at "the farmhouse" on the edge of town, where Rozelle beds local men for money. But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life, but can she break from Rozelle's grasp without ruinous--even fatal--consequences?"--,Provided by publisher.

"In 1958 Georgia, the shade of a 13-year-old black girl's skin can make the difference in her fate. Tangy Mae is the smartest of her mother's ten children, but she is also the darkest-complected. The Quinns--all different skin shades, all with unknown fathers--live with their charismatic, beautiful, and tyrannical mother, Rozelle, in poverty on the fringes of a Georgia town where Jim Crow rules. Rozelle's children live in fear of her mood swings and her violence, but they are devoted to her. Rozelle pulls her children out of school when they are twelve years old so that they can help support her by going to work--as domestics, as field laborers, or down at "the farmhouse," where Rozelle takes her oldest daughters to turn tricks for her. Tangy Mae has been offered the opportunity to apply to an integrated high school, and might even have the chance to graduate if she can somehow avoid her sisters' fate. Can she break from Rozelle's grasp without violent--even fatal--consequences?"--,Provided by publisher.