about the book
Kizzy Ann Stamps is troublesome. This feisty twelve-year-old says exactly what she thinks, asks too many questions, hates to be bossed, and refuses to back down.
Her last switching was for an essay she wrote about who she admired. Her classmates mostly wrote about Dr. King or Rosa Parks. Kizzy wrote about her border collie, Shag. Mrs. Warren, her teacher at the one-room black school house, said the essay had to be about a person. Kizzy refused to re-write the paper! Yes, Kizzy is a real handful!
It is 1963, and Lynchburg, Virginia, is forced to integrate. Kizzy must now go to the white school. The soon-to-be unemployed Mrs. Warren tells her black students to write to their new teacher. Kizzy lets Miss Anderson know right off she does not want to change schools. Amazed that the white teacher actually writes back, Kizzy continues to candidly correspond with her all summer long. Kizzy has lots of concerns— some about the kids, some about racial issues.
Will she fit in? Will she get teased about her hand-me-down clothes? Will the kids stare at Kizzy’s scar? It goes from the corner of her right eye to the corner of her lips. Frank Feagan caused it. His daddy is their nasty white neighbor and now Frank will be a classmate too! How will she deal with that?
Miss Anderson is supportive, even if she is white, but others are bigoted and cruel. When one of her classmates sneers that she can’t enter her dog in an upcoming herding competition because of her skin, Kizzy is devastated—but not down. Determined to face the challenge, she finds an ally in loner Mr. McKenna, a Scottish dog trainer, who doesn’t care a lick about Kizzy’s skin color. For him, it is all about the dog.
Kizzy knows Shag could win. Now she just has to prove it to everyone else!
about the author
Jeri Hanel Watts was born in 1957 and grew up on a farm in Bedford Country, just outside Lynchburg, Virginia. At a young age, she felt compelled to tell stories. It wasn’t until a junior high teacher told her that she was a “real writer” that Jeri actually considered making story telling her life’s work.
She studied at the College of William and Mary and earned a master’s at the University of Virginia. Unfortunately, real life interfered with her dreams of being a full time writer. Jeri became a wife and mother of two, and also taught school for more than twenty-seven years. She is a reading specialist.
She tries to combine her work as a teacher with her work as a writer. She listened to her fifth-grade students discuss how there are more books written about black girls than about black boys. Also, the concept of keeping a family’s history alive excited her students to write their own stories. That inspired Jeri’s first picture book, Keeper, in which, though she is female and white, she chose to write in the voice of an African-American boy!
Even though Jeri still doesn’t get to write every day, she does write often and continues to produce short stories and books. Kizzy Ann Stamps is her first middle-grade novel and is inspired by her own years on a Virginia farm. She remembers in the 60s learning to see things from a different point of view and being excited to be part of integration movement. She says that all her stories begin with the characters because she likes people so much!
Currently, Jeri is a professor at Lynchburg College. She lives in that city with her husband, two daughters, and their Labrador, Nimbus.
Sources:
Author biography : Candlewick Press
Book review : Randomly Reading
Author biography : JRank
read more!
Cruisers (Book 1) by Walter Dean Myers
Starting their own newspaper, Zander and his friends call it The Cruiser. It is a place to speak their minds, promote peace, and express their beliefs. As their school puts on a mock Civil War reenactment, the student reporters have to think about what democracy and standing up for good really means.
A Friendship for Today by Patricia McKissack
Rosemary will be one of the first black girls to attend a previously all-white school in 1954 Missouri. She knows it will be difficult, but she didn’t count on being the only black girl there after her best friend comes down with polio. Will she be able to make friends among the girls who make fun of her?
The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
In 1958 Little Rock, Arkansas, painfully shy Marlee sees her city and family divided over school integration. But a friendship with Liz, a transfer student who is passing for white, helps her find her voice and fight against the bigotry.