Circle of Fire (American Girl History Mysteries) - Hardcover

Evelyn Coleman's books include "To Be a Drum", "White Socks Only", "The Riches of Oseola McCarty", a Smithsonian Notable Book and a Carter G. Woodson Honor Book, and "Born in Sin". Ms. Coleman lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she received the Atlanta Mayor's fellowship for achievement in children's literature. Visit Evelyn online at evelyncoleman.com.

Gr. 3-6. In this suspenseful novel in the History Mystery series, the time is June 1958; the setting is a small town in Tennessee. The heroine, an African American girl, Mendy, is best friends with Jeffrey, a white boy she has known all her life. But that summer, things change. Jeffrey's parents forbid him to play with Mendy; and Mendy's mother won't let her go to the Highlander Folk School, where blacks and whites study ways to improve race relations; and Mendy learns how insidious the Klan is when she accidentally discovers them in some nearby woods. Mendy is thrilled to learn that Eleanor Roosevelt plans to speak at Highlander, but her excitement is short-circuted when she and Jeffrey uncover a Klan plot to bomb the school. As readers learn in an afterword, the events in this intriguing story are based on a true incident: Eleanor Roosevelt did speak at the school, and the FBI foiled a Klan plot to disrupt her visit. Shelley Townsend-Hudson
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