Alligator Bayou

Authors: Napoli, Donna Jo
Topics: Community, Frienship, African American History/Interest
Lexile: 430,
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
BISAC/Subject: YAF046120, YAF024150, YAF058190
ISBN: 9780375897214, Related ISBNs: 0375897216, 0385746547, 0385908911, 0553494171, 9780375897214
Classification: Fiction
Number of pages: 288,
Audience: Young adult
Synopsis: Talullah, Louisiana. 1899.

Calogero, his uncles, and cousins are six Sicilian men living in the small town of Tallulah, Louisiana. They work hard, growing vegetables and selling them at their stand and in their grocery store.

To 14-year-old Calogero, newly arrived from Sicily, Tallulah is a lush world full of contradictions, hidden rules, and tension between the Negro and white communities. He’s startled and thrilled by the danger of a ’gator hunt in the midnight bayou, and by his powerful feelings for Patricia, a sharpwitted, sweet-natured Negro girl. Some people welcome the Sicilians. Most do not. Calogero’s family is caught in the middle: the whites don’t see them as equal, but befriending Negroes is dangerous. Every day brings Calogero and his family closer to a a terrifying, violent confrontation.
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