“In this historical novel, Lauren develops into a confident young woman, going places her elders hardly dared imagine. Robinson’s poignant prologue does an effective job of evoking the ‘fog of ambiguity and contradiction’ that characterizes the mid-20th century America into which Lauren is born. Lauren’s story is captivating, moving, and instructive without being didactic, depicting both the subtleties and the overtness of racism through the eyes of one of it’s most innocent victims, an observant child …”
“A vivid and dynamic coming-of-age story framed by the struggle for civil rights.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS
An American Daughter of Brown is an historical novel set in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education in the year 1955. It is a coming-of-age story of Lauren Sullivan, an eight year-old lower middle class African-American girl who very reluctantly participates in the integration of an elementary school in her mid-western American city. Having come from a previously all-Black school with teachers who recognize and encourage her gifted abilities, she is thrown into a predominately white school where she is ignored by her teacher and bored by her classroom studies. With the help of her enlightened mother and grandparents, she learns to navigate the racism and continue her academic advancement. As she grows into adulthood and struggles to find her own identity, she suffers through domestic violence and a near rape.
Life teaches Lauren that she must refuse to allow the intense forces of racism and sexism to define or limit her. She is forced to learn to confront those negative forces and communicate her views and positions strongly and clearly even though voices such as hers are not welcomed or even acknowledged by those in authority in and outside her school and community.
Armed with such knowledge and the continued honing of these skills, Lauren achieves a university degree, which includes a junior year abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. There, she falls in love with a handsome young fellow student who grew up in Brittany and whose parents fought in the French Resistance during the Second World War.
As a result of her experiences in France, including a visit at the home of her new friend's parents, she learns that a subtle racism is alive and well, even in very liberal, genteel post-war France. However, the experience gives her perspective and brings her view of racism and sexism full circle. She is thus ready to return to the United States in order to take her place as an adult African-American woman.