What do readers say...

Like most houses in “the neighborhood” this one is surrounded by live oaks.

What's the Story?  It looks like it’s going to be a long hot summer for Cass Bodine who is home with her older sister, Lou Anne, and her baby sister, Missy. She has nothing to do but her daily run at the nearby school track, and cook supper for her family, until the house next door gets sold. When her father hears that the new family will be black, he builds a fence. According to Mr. Bodine, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

But there’s a knothole in just the right place for Cass to watch the goings-on next door. She gets caught by Jemmie, the daughter of the new family. Jemmie is twelve too, and she loves to run. Cass challenges Jemmie to meet her at the school track to see who’s fastest.

As it turns out, the girls are evenly matched, so it’s hard to say who’s fastest. The only way to resolve it is to meet again. And again. A friendship develops, known only to Jemmie’s grandmother, Nana Grace. Nana Grace, who lived through the tough early days of the civil rights movement in Tallahassee, encourages the girls. Things go along fine until Cass’s Dad catches them and forbids Cass to see Jemmie. It takes a medical emergency involving Cass’s baby sister to force the two families together.

Old prejudices don’t change overnight. Both sets of adults have to work on becoming friends and neighbors. Crossing Jordan shows that young people can sometimes be the ones who make change possible.

Where did the story idea come from?  First, let me say “Crossing Jordan” isn't a book that I planned to write. I was working on something entirely different when I had a conversation with the nine-year-old white girl who lived next door.

"Miss Adrian," she said. "We're going to have to move soon because there are getting to be too many black people in this neighborhood." When I asked her what could be wrong with that she told me, "You know. They break in your house. They rob you and shoot you." I asked her if that had ever happened to her and she said, "No." So I asked if it had ever happened to anyone she knew. Again she said, "No." Then I asked her why she thought that stuff happened since it had never happened to her or to anyone she knew. She looked at me like I was crazy. "Oh, Miss Adrian," she said, "everyone knows it's true."

I tried to change her mind but she wouldn't budge. I realized that I wasn't hearing a nine-year-old speaking for herself. She was repeating what she had been told by someone she really trusted, probably a parent.

Sometimes an author writes a book because they feel they have to do something. "Crossing Jordan" is that kind of book. I wrote it for the girl next door and for any other kid who is being taught prejudice at home.

 What's Real?  Is the fence real?   No. The girl next door and her family picked up and moved away, just like she’d said. That would not have made much of a story. How would anything change if the family left instead of getting to know their neighbors? It wouldn’t. And that’s what stories are about; change. So I built the fence for them (out of words.)

In “Crossing Jordan” Cass and Jemmie read an old, old book called “Jane Eyre.” Why did the girls read that particular book? My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Silliman, challenged my class to read “Jane Eyre” because it was her favorite. It was a struggle, but seven of us (all girls) read it. When Cass and Jemmie complain about how tough it is to read, believe them!

When Cass’s baby sister suffers from “the heat prostration” I knew exactly how to describe the scene because something very similar happened to my little brother when I was Cass’s age. Scare-y.

Awards

Interested in purchasing this book?  Order your copy online today, at Peachtree Publishers!