The Parker Inheritance, written by Varian Johnson, reviewed by Klaudia Janek

Summary:  Candice and her mom have moved from Washington DC to a small town in South Caroline.  Candice meets Brandon and they become fast friends.  Candice finds an old letter that was from her grandmother with a mystery in it.  Her Grandmother had tried to solve the mystery but the town just thought she was crazy.  There is supposed to be a treasure at the end of the mystery puzzle, so Candice and Brandon decide to attempt to piece together what had really happened during an illegal tennis match played in 1957.  The match was between the white Wallace School and the African American Perkins School.  As they get closer to solving the mystery the deeply rooted racism starts to become very visible.

Straight Talk for Librarians:  This book is a good mix of historical fiction, realistic fiction, and mystery.  There is lots of action and suspense.  Readers will begin to see that racial equity is still an unresolved problem.  What happened in the past, can still be spilling over into today.  The pages that take place in the present are white pages, and the pages that take place in the 1950s are shaded gray. There are some pages set in 2007 that are black with white text, showing the words of the grandmother.  I really enjoyed the visual effect of different time periods were in a different color.  I think this is a great middle-grade book.  It could be used in an ELA classroom, a history classroom, or just for fun reading.  Some elements for discussion could include how schools were segregated, how some students were able to “pass as white”  I am a big fan of Varian Johnson and this book will not disappoint readers.  Get this for your middle school library or classroom.