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Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-57131-663-9
Pages: 240
Publish Date: Dec, 2006
Genre: Young Readers
The $66 Summer
A Novel of the Segregated South
BY John Armistead
Thirteen-year-old George Harrington wants to earn enough money to buy a motorcycle, so he packs off to Obadiah, Alabama, to work in his grandmother’s store for the summer. Fourteen-year-old, strong-willed Esther Garrison, who has just graduated from the eighth-grade at Obadiah Colored School, also works at the store, saving money to attend high school in the fall. Her brother Bennett’s job is not as desirable as his sister’s—he works for a surly white farmer, Mr. Vorhise, who raises fighting dogs.
The three spend their time together, exploring and searching for outlaw treasure. A current of 1950s racism ruptures their idyllic summer when George, Esther, and Bennett stumble onto chilling evidence on Mr. Vorhise’s land that explains some mysteries around town and unleashes a new chain of events.
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“This richly peopled story partakes of To Kill a Mockingbird’s atmosphere of a society in which blacks and whites cannot expect equal justice . . . Armistead is a fine storyteller.”
—Houston Chronicle“Weaves a powerful message into a poignant narrative.”
—School Library Journal
