Back in 2008 David C. Cook published the Christy Award winner Blue Hole Back Home by Joy Jordan-Lake. For some the story, voice, and theme are reminiscent of the classic To Kill A Mockingbird. Blue Hole Back Home takes place in a fictional small town in North Carolina where the local kids spend their sweaty summers cooling off at what they call the "Blue Hole". The boys do calisthenics off the rope swing, and the girls swim and sun themselves in the hot Carolina heat.
In 1979 a new girl appears at school and one day Shelby Lenoir insists her older brother Emerson stop along the roadside and invite the girl to jump in the bed of his pickup with her and the three more boys who comprise their ragtag group. "Turtle", as Shelby is affectionately called, introduces Farsanna to Emerson, her brother's and her best friend Jimbo, her cousin who speaks like an English professor, and another sulky boy they call "Welp". Since Farsanna comes from Sri Lanka, her color creates a stir in their small town and introduces these young people to vile behaviors, prejudice, hatred, and violence beyond anything they could anticipate. Attempting to ignore the agitation and increasing unrest the arrival of Farsanna's family causes, there comes a point where it can no longer be set aside or left alone.
Joy Jordan-Lake portrays the fear, ugliness, and incredible tension produced by the entrance of a young black girl into the lives of a community where a group of kids struggle with welcoming her while others of all ages choose to hate her and her family because of their skin color. The story is told as a memory when the adult narrator sees an individual that reminds her of the one summer in her past which changed everything about her coming of age - where normal and naive transformed into a terrifying realization of what hate could do if left unchallenged. Remembering the experiences of the swimming hole that wasn't blue where it all seemed to begin, the reader is transported to the southern summer days and nights spent with a group of kids who attempt to do right by forming a friendship with a girl from a different land only to find there are far more who desire to do wrong.
With truly striking writing that captures the insecurity and emotionalism of the teen years, the cost of taking a stand against terrible wrong, and the actions and thoughts of the faithful and the faithless, Blue Hole Back Home presents a bittersweet reading experience. The underlying tension is relentless from the moment these unsuspecting kids pick up Farsanna and induct her into their "mangy" grouping. Mostly we hear the story from Turtle's perspective, her unbelieving heart, the peer pressure she never confronts, her jealousy of this lovely girl she can't quite fully embrace, and her paralyzing fear when bad things turn worse. We learn from her adult conclusions the toll of this particular summer at the Blue Hole Back Home and the steep price of regret.
Ultimately the story is hard reading because of its basis in reality. But worth it. Listen to a sample of this amazing novel here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8bgUA4t7sl8
Oh, Father, how much it hurts to see man's inhumanities to each other and all living things. We are full of sin and need your cleansing daily. God, forgive us. I pray your blessings for Joy, for her heart to create meaningful literature, to insert the honesty and travesty of those things of which we're all capable. May she continue to seek you in all she does. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.