A Thousand Never Evers (25 page)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shana Burg’s debut novel,
A Thousand Never Evers,
was inspired by her father’s role as a lawyer in the civil rights movement. Shana grew up hearing her parents recount riveting tales of the grassroots struggle to end racial discrimination.
From training in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, to her work with a Mississippi community nutrition project, to her job teaching sixth grade in a racially diverse public school, to her volunteer assignments in Africa and Central America, Shana has continued to explore the modern legacy of the civil rights movement.
To write
A Thousand Never Evers,
she conducted scores of interviews, read old newspapers and magazines, listened to oral histories and the blues, memorized endless gardening facts, hired her former middle school students to edit her manuscript, and baked butter bean cookies.
Shana lives with her family in Austin, Texas.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2008 by Shana Burg
Frontis photograph copyright © Lance Nelson/Corbis
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burg, Shana.
A thousand never evers / Shana Burg.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As the civil rights movement in the South gains momentum in 1963—and violence against African Americans intensifies—the black residents, including seventh-grader Addie Ann Pickett, in the small town of Kuckachoo, Mississippi, begin their own courageous struggle for racial justice.
1. Civil rights movements—Southern States—History—20th century—Juvenile fiction. [1. Civil rights movements—Fiction. 2. Race relations—Fiction. 3. African Americans—Fiction. 4. Mississippi—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B916259Th 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2007028226
eISBN: 978-0-375-84893-3
v3.0