In August 1965, 14-year-old Winter Robeson travels from Mississippi to visit his relatives in Los Angeles. Narrated in verse through the voice of Eden Louise, his 12-year-old cousin, the novel ensures readers are privy to Winter's real reason for visiting--he's on a mission to find out what happened to his father, who disappeared from L.A. 10 years before. The two of them sleuth together through nearby locales, discovering more than they bargained for, some of it good and some disturbing. During the visit, sparks explode between police and area residents, and Watts erupts into six days of violence. Woods has framed this story lyrically, using musical movements and terminology to move the exposition along believably through Eden, who hopes to be a songstress. Readers will find themselves immersed in the time period with naturally included details, such as musicians, authors, and places. This slim yet affecting offering presents an important moment in U.S. history that sadly mirrors current events. Middle-graders will be entertained and educated, as well as inspired to action.

Woods (The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA) explores the Watts riots of August 1965 through the experience of two Black cousins in a rhythmic historical novel in verse. In Los Angeles, 12-year-old narrator Eden Louise Coal aspires to become a songwriter. With her 13-year-old cousin Winter Robeson visiting, Eden anticipates two weeks of fun, but his arrival makes her long for the music of Mississippi, "the country roads and folks" she grew up with until the family's move to California two years prior. Winter, who has only experienced life under racial segregation, relishes "being able to sit where you please" on the bus and enjoys time with his hosts while planning to search the Watts neighborhood for his "disappeared daddy," who vanished a decade prior after promising to send for his family. But after Eden's mother receives a phone call that the residents of Watts are fed up with police brutality and harassment, everything goes up in smoke. Interwoven with plentiful music references ("Winter and I became a duo; our ballad, a duet") and utilizing historically accurate language, Woods's harmonious play-by-play narrative of growing up during the Watts Riots spotlights some long-lasting effects of racial inequality and discrimination on children. Ages 10--up. (Jan.)

In August 1965, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts is "a volcano aching to erupt." Twelve-year-old Eden Louise Coal, who lives just outside of Watts, is looking forward to the visit of her thirteen-year-old cousin, Winter Robeson, from Sunflower, Mississippi. Though Winter has a long list of things he wants to do, Eden realizes he is really there to find his father, who disappeared from Watts ten years earlier. Winter's visit affords some cultural comparisons, as when Winter notes, "Y'all got a little Jim Crow here too, huh?" after Eden tells him she has only one white neighbor left after white flight claimed all the others. Eden plans to be a songwriter, and the verse novel's text frequently achieves lines Eden herself would relish: "She's like a musician / who has forgotten her notes," Eden says of an elderly friend with dementia. The first-person narrative is unusually dense in thematic layers for such a short novel -- neighborhood, family, friends, music, social justice, and dreams -- themes that Eden begins to weave into songs by story's end. This is a nuanced story, told from the heart and rooted in Woods's (Zoe in Wonderland, rev. 7/16) own experiences in 1965 Watts, as related in the author's note. Dean Schneider January/February 2022 p.125(c) Copyright 2022. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.