Down Sand Mountain

by Steve Watkins

Overview

"A classic loss-of-innocence story. . . . Readers will be haunted by the drama of harsh secrets close to home." —Booklist (starred review)

It’s 1966, and Dewey is determined to start seventh grade right. No more being the brunt of every joke. But after he stains his face mimicking the minstrel show’s popular Shoeshine Boy, bullies call him Sambo and bar him from the — whites only — bathroom. The only kid who will talk to him is fellow outsider Darla, who wears her hair (and sings and dances) like Shirley Temple. Through their friendship, Dewey learns of issues bigger than himself and his small Florida town — like segregation, the Vietnam War, sexuality, abuse, and even death and grieving. Told in a voice at times comic and lighthearted, at others devastating and lonely, this novel will stay with readers long after the book is closed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763648350
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/22/2011
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	NC1200L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 13 Years

About the Author

 

Read an Excerpt

It was the middle of August 1966, and me and Wayne and Dad and about two hundred people were sweating and stinking in the auditorium of the Sand Mountain High School, home of the Mighty Mighty Miners. We were there for the Rotary Club Minstrel Show, but Wayne fell asleep after fifteen minutes. When he did that in church, Mom always said it was because of his hay fever and let him alone. That night of the minstrel show, I stayed awake with Dad, who was the treasurer of the Rotary Club, although as it turned out he fell asleep, too. I sometimes wished I had hay fever like them so I could fall asleep anywhere. I also wished I had a bag of marbles with me, since the auditorium floor was slanted and if you dropped them on the hardwood floor, they would probably roll all the way down to the stage. Not that I wouldn’t about die if I ever did that and got caught.

Dad couldn’t carry a tune — that’s what my mom said. I remember the day she said it, I asked her, "Carry it where?" and she said, "Oh boy, here we go again." Anyway, that’s why he wasn’t in the minstrel show but down in the audience with us. They started up with a prayer, "Lord bless us and keep us," then the Pledge of Allegiance, then the Rotary Club song "R-O-T-A-R-Y, that spells Rotary. R-O-T-A-R-Y is known on land and sea. From north to south, and east to west, He profits most who serves the best." After that a guy sang "Old Man River," then a kid I knew shuffled onto the stage and it was Boopie Larent, who was twelve, the same as me, and used to be a friend of mine. We were in the same kid choir at the Methodist Church. He wore a white bow tie, which I bet somebody tied for him, and white gloves, and big white lips, and his face was shoe-polish black, not like real colored people. He sang "Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy," which was about a very happy colored boy who shined people’s shoes and made them happy, too.

Boopie carried a shoe shine kit and danced soft-shoe. That’s what my dad told me it was. It just looked like sliding around to me, then some leaning way forward, and some running in place to keep from pitching over on his face while he windmilled his arms. The only other kids I ever saw dance before that were the twins Darla and Darwin Turkel, who always tap-danced at County Fair, where my dad worked in the Rotary Club corn-dog booth. Darla and Darwin were all dressed up with their mom a couple of rows in front of us that night at the minstrel show. Their mom used to wear a mermaid costume and do underwater ballets and stuff over at Weeki Wachee Springs by the Gulf of Mexico. Now she taught dancing lessons sometimes. Darla had fifty-two ringlets in her hair, just like Shirley Temple, or that was the story, anyway. Everybody said to stay away from Darwin — he was worse than a girl.

I realized something about halfway through Boopie doing the "Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy." "Is that my shoe-shine kit? I asked my dad. I was holding his hand, feeling his calluses. I was too old to be holding his hand — when you get to be twelve, you’re too old for a lot of things — but I did it anyway and he let me when it was dark like that in the auditorium and nobody could see. I liked how it felt from him working at the phosphate mine where he was an engineer, only not the kind that drove a train.

I thought maybe my dad was listening to the show and that’s why he didn’t answer, so I asked him again. “Is that the shoe-shine kit you bought me, Dad?” I don’t know why it made me mad. But if it was my shoe-shine kit, I thought I ought to get to be the Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy. Everybody was laughing at old Boopie up there, and the harder they laughed, the more I wished it was me. I wanted to be funny like that, and dance, and sing, and wear a white tie and white gloves and white lips and shoe-shine face darker than the colored people.

DOWN SAND MOUNTAIN by Steve Watkins. Copyright © 2008 by Steve Watkins. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Somerville, MA.

"R-O-T-A-R-Y, That Spells Rotary" from the Rotary songbook by Norris C. Morgan. Copyright © 1923 by the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE. Reprinted by permission of the Rotary Club of Wilmington, DE.

Editorial Reviews

The simple, beautiful prose remains totally true to the child’s bewildered viewpoint…readers will be haunted.
—Booklist (starred review)

From the Publisher

Gr 7-9

Things are anything but tranquil along the Peace River as Dewey starts seventh grade in Sand Mountain, FL, in 1966. From his nascent desire to wear blackface to play the part of the shoe-shine boy in next year's Rotary Club Minstrel show, to his dad's doomed run for city council that includes a plan to pave streets in Boogerbottom, the part of town where Negroes live, racial issues are underlying themes in the story. Layered above are Dewey's well-justified apprehensions about bullying at school, his "Americanism vs. Communism" class, and his lack of friends. Eighth-grade brother Wayne offers no help. Dancing lessons with Darla, a Shirley Temple wannabe about whom rumors circulate, and her "prissy" twin brother, Darwin, further confuse him. Vietnam vet Walter Wratchford, who rescues the miserable, soaked, dirty Dewey after he skips the first day of school to play at the creek, seems weird. The beauty is in the telling of this bildungsroman, as what is unspoken about the murky racism, sexual climate, and political realities of the time effectively build into a pervasive fog of unease. Readers will understand that Dewey's innocence dims his understanding of the politics of hate, but will easily identify with his deeply felt fears. And they'll share his wonder and confusion about his first kiss and first masturbatory sexual experience with Darla. Readers who enjoyed Gary D. Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars (Clarion, 2007) or Lance Marcum's The Cottonmouth Club (Farrar, 2005) will find sliding down Sand Mountain a faster ride, but infused with similar-and satisfying-gravitas.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA

School Library Journal

Sand Mountain, Fla., circa 1966, has a segregated population emotionally wrestling with Jim Crow laws. Dewey Turner, a lonely youth entering seventh grade, seeks popularity but makes the unfortunate decision to paint his face with black shoe polish, pretending to be in a minstrel show. He endures racial taunts and can only latch onto one friend, sassy fellow outcast Darla Turkel, who wears her hair in Shirley Temple curls. Watkins's well-constructed coming-of-age novel at first appears to be something of a nostalgia trip, with references to black-and-white TVs, late-night snipe hunts and pogo sticks. Adults appear as both positive and negative role models, but it's Walter Wratchford, a listless Vietnam veteran, whose disillusioned comments open Dewey's mind to the racial hatred simmering beneath the seemingly innocent Sand Mountain atmosphere. As the story moves to a stunning climactic scene, logical character and content comparisons will be made to To Kill a Mockingbird. Although not a fly-off-the-shelves selection, this title may be paired with Gary D. Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars (2007) as titles set in the '60s suitable for multigenerational reads. (Historical fiction. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews