Susan Marcus Bends the Rules

Reviewed by: Phyllis Fuchs - Curtis Mmorial Library, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: February 11, 2015

Review

The colorful Jacket illustration suggests a story about racial prejudice. Its narrator, ten year old Susan, recently transplanted from New York City to a small town in Missouri in 1943, makes the book also one of historical fiction. In just over one hundred pages divided into seventeen brief chapters, readers can learn a bit about FDR, the country's President in World War 11, that mailing a letter within the country cost a three cent stamp, what a Victory Garden was and a disease called polio. Adding to her surprise and then immediate opposition to Jim Crow laws, Susan personally encounters dislike of Jews, of the Japanese, of her beloved baseball team, the New York Yankees. The story offers young girls of about nine through eleven or twelve years a thoughtful account of a once feisty new resident who is learning much about the nature of friendships, her success in achieving, through small, realistic steps, with help from new friends, a move towards acceptance of all people. Recommended.

Overall Book Score: good