Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Forgotten Treasure!

Ooh! Late night post! :)

For Book Blogger Appreciation Week, today we were invited to share a book we wish would get more attention by book bloggers. This was a hard one because all of the book bloggers I've come across? You guys are rock stars. I learn more about my favorite authors through you and it's always much appreciated. So, in light of this, I decided to go with:

"Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. Everyone in the small Georgia town in which she lives knows that they have different fathers. She favors her light children, but it is Tangy Mae, the darkest of them all, who is the brightest and the only one desperate to get an education. Even in rural Pakersfield they have heard of the Supreme Court's recent ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, though they are in no hurry to comply with it." "Rozelle wants thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae to take over her jobs: days, doing house cleaning for whites; nights, servicing men, white and black, at the "Farmhouse." And Rozelle is not a woman whose commands can lightly be ignored. She is a creature of moods, possessive of all her children, desperate for their love, demanding of utter loyalty and obedience, harshly repressive of any signs of independence. They are the only thing in her life that she can control." The Darkest Child shows us a world misshapen by years of oppression in which family is powerful yet offers little kindness or comfort. It shows us a world in which attitudes of prejudice have been adopted by its victim, and the resulting struggle of those who are darker complected is a struggle not only against outsiders, but against the closest of kin.--Goodreads

I read this book two times, back to back. It's a moving story; one that deals with not only race but a dysfunctional family led by an emotionally unstable mother. I cried while reading this book, sympathizing for children who would never know what family life is like. Add in the time period and race issues and I was DONE. It's not an easy read but it's definitely a thought-provoking one.