A powerful novel about growing up black on the World War II home front in the Jim Crow South. Caleb lives in a world at war. War news is on everyone's mind, and Caleb's older brother, Randall, is likely to be sent overseas. The presence of German POWs in Caleb's rural Georgia community is a constant reminder of what's happening in Europe. Locked in a power struggle with his domineering father and fighting to keep both his temper and his self-respect in dealing with whites, Caleb finds his loyalties shifting and his certainties slipping away. This coming-of-age story, set in a time before the civil rights movement emerged, traces one young man's growing commitment to justice and to the courage needed to protect it.
