Nolan, Han. SUMMER OF KINGS

Nolan, Han.
A SUMMER OF KINGS
Orlando : Harcourt, 2006

Let me tell you about my summer. The summer of 1963. This summer will not be like any of my past ones. No more summer- long tutoring. No more being the only one without a boy friend. Because this is the summer that my mother’s best friend (well they were best friends until they learned that little white girls and little black girls weren’t supposed to be best friends). Anyway this is the summer that my mother’s best friend sent her son north to spend the summer with us. Just until things cooled down a bit. Because her son, King-Roy, had been accused of killing a white man. Anyway this is to be the summer of my big romance. My romance with King-Roy. He is everything I expected – tall, dark and handsome – and only four years older than I am. He is kind, and gentle. I never expected that we would become soul-mates. I can tell him just everything, things I have never told anyone. And he can tap dance and he is teaching me how to tap-dance! There are other things I did not expect. I did not expect that he could get SO angry. And he talks about Malcolm X and the white devil (that’s me and all other whites). And I never imagined he would sneak a gun into our house. I’ll tell you all about it in Summer of the Kings. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award committee)