We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis's birth, tensions are mounting over civil rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently—and violently—across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her daughter, Diana, in the way she sees fit—with the support of her tough-talking black caregiver, Peacie.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan C. Bradley In an early 1950s English village, Flavia de Luce is preoccupied with retaliating against her lofty older sisters when a rude, redheaded stranger arrives to confront her eccentric father, a philatelic devotee. Equally adept at quoting 18th-century works, listening at keyholes and picking locks, Flavia learns that her father, Colonel de Luce, may be involved in the suicide of his long-ago schoolmaster and the theft of a priceless stamp. The sudden expiration of the stranger in a cucumber bed, wacky village characters with ties to the schoolmaster, and a sharp inspector with doubts about the colonel and his enterprising young detective daughter mean complications for Flavia and enormous fun for the reader.
Big Girls Don’t Cry by Connie Briscoe Naomi Jefferson, who experiences her fair share of loss, betrayal and addiction, believes that the weight of the world lies on her shoulders, until Joseph, her deceased brother's illegitimate teenage son, enters her life and teaches her a lesson in courage and self-love.
One Mississippi by Mark Childress When Daniel Musgrove's troubled family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, he is appalled. On top of the usual teenage humiliations, he now has to learn to say "y'all" and "Co-Cola" or risk being ostracized as a Yankee. But Daniel's loneliness fades when he meets fellow outsider Tim Cousins. You only need one best friend, he figures, to make it through high school alive. Daniel and Tim become inseparable, sharing a fascination with ridicule, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and Arnita Beecham, the most bewitching girl at Minor High. The boys join the cast of a bouncy evangelical musical. They take their dates to the prom in matching sky blue tuxedos. But then things start to go terribly wrong. The friends' feud with the school bully gets out of hand. They commit a small crime that grows larger and larger, and threatens to engulf the whole town. Also, Crazy in Alabama by this author, which is set in the racially restless summer of 1965 in Alabama.
Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy Will McLean spends four years at a Carolina military academy where he is responsible for shepherding the first black cadet. Also, South of Broad by this author.
The Summer We Got Saved by Pat Cunningham Devoto Embracing the belief systems of her Southern hometown, Tab witnesses changes in the attitudes throughout the course of a 1960s gubernatorial campaign, which is marked by the establishment of a voting school for church members.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg Mrs. Threadgoode's tale of two high-spirited women of the 1930s, Idgie and Ruth, helps Evelyn, a 1980s woman in a sad slump of middle age, to begin to rejuvenate her own life.
The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwinn Set in 1960s Mississippi in a segregated society in which black women are paid poorly to raise white people’s children. Like the popular Secret Life of Bees (2002) by Sue Monk Kidd, it is narrated by a confused young girl who can barely process the traumatic events she sees but does not understand.
Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd After her "stand-in mother," a bold black woman named Rosaleen, insults the three biggest racists in town, Lily Owens joins Rosaleen on a journey to Tiburon, South Carolina, where they are taken in by three black, beekeeping sisters.
Right as Rain by Bev Marshall Tee Wee and Icey are the cook and housekeeper in a house in rural Mississippi in the 1940s and 1950s, and their competitive friendship is the prism through which readers experience the love stories, tragedies, and even courtroom drama that fill the lives of the two women and their families.
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride A young African-American man describes growing up as one of 12 children of a white mother and black father, and discusses his mother's contributions to his life and his confusion over his own identity. Nonfiction/biography
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund In the wake of racial tensions in 1960s Alabama, sheltered white college student Stella participates in her first freedom movement and finds her life changed in several ways when she develops friendships with local African-Americans.
Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas Celeste Tyree, a black 19-year-old college student, travels to Mississippi to take part in the 1964 summer campaign to register disenfranchised African-American voters.
The Summer of Kings by Han Nolan (young adult/teen) Over the course of the summer of 1963, 14-year-old Esther Young discovers the passion within her when 18-year-old King-Roy Johnson, accused of murdering a white man in Alabama, comes to live with her family.
Downtown by Anne Rivers Siddons Maureen Smoky O'Donnell goes to Atlanta to write for a magazine in the 1960s, and after writing about the city's war on poverty, she falls in love with a man who leaves for Vietnam.
Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar Captures the delicate balance of class and gender in contemporary India as witnessed through the lives of two women—Sera Dubash, an upper middle-class housewife, and Bhima, an illiterate domestic hardened by a life of loss and despair.
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