McKendree

by Sandra Belton

Overview

"McKendree ain't a who. It's a place." So begins this story about a group of teens who, for a variety of reasons, end up spending their summer at a lonely home for the elderly in the hills of West Virginia. "... As told by fourteen-year-old Tilara and the others, this is also a tale of tangled summer romance, an element which transcends predictability as it unfolds entertainingly through the multiple perspectives of the characters... what distinguishes this book is its honest exploration of prejudice as it exists within a culture-and perhaps still does." - Kirkus, starred review "... A touching coming-of-age drama set in 1948... Through the multiple perspectives of the young people, readers see that outward appearances are often deceiving. The plot hangs delicately but tenaciously-like wisteria on a pine-on the theme of true beauty and self acceptance. McKendree fills an all-too-often forgotten niche, and provides a good sounding board for teens who are going through a similar exploration of self." - School Library Journal • Bank Street College of Education Josette Frank Award • Best Children's Books of 2000 • Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506178066
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	04/17/2015
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.44(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Tilara stared at her reflection, watching herself drift across the summer greens of the passing mountains.

A moving picture star.

Thinking this, she saw her mouth bend into a small smile.

In the shadows of the window mirror of her little train room – a roomette, Papa had called it – Tilara studied the familiar details of herself: the dark chocolate face framed by tightly coiled strands of hair. The nut brown eyes. Haynes eyes. Eyes that had smiled from her father's face when he kissed her good-bye at the train station and that she would see in Aunt Cloelle, who would be waiting when the train ride was over.

Tilara turned from the window and leaned back against her seat. Closing her eyes, she took the picture of her reflected self into her thoughts and tried to imagine herself as Mr. Morris had called her when he brought her a breakfast tray that morning.

"My special service for every pretty young lady," he said, moving expertly in his starched white jacket to arrange food on the pulled-out-from-the-wall table.

Pretty young lady.

"Yessirree," Mr. Morris said. "I bet the boys back home are lined up outside your door!"

Tilara kept her eyes on the plate with the three kinds of bread on it.

"If there's anything else you want, just call me," Mr. Morris said, shutting the door to the little room as he left.

It was then that Tilara had started looking at herself in the window mirror. She watched herself spread jam on the muffin and lift it to her mouth. She saw the glass of juice fit against her lips, tilt forward, and slowly empty. Soon the picture-in-picture reflections of the window made iteasier to imagine that she was what Mr. Morris had said: a pretty young lady.

But in her heart she knew better.

Tilara had grown up looking at reflections of someone she had been told was the loveliest woman who ever lived. A person whose pictures lined the wall along the stairs and almost filled the top of the piano in the living room. Someone whose portrait showed skin the color of cream, hair that hung to her waist in silky brown curls, and wide eyes the color of gray smoke.

The pictures were of Tilara's mother. The woman Papa still talked to through the pictures.

"Don't you remember her eyes, Tee?" Papa would ask as he smiled at the person in the dining-room portrait. "Smoking pearls, I used to call them." He would chuckle. "You liked hearing that, didn't you, Lindy?" he would say to the portrait, seeming to forget that it was Tilara who was at the table with him and not Belinda Cross Haynes, his wife who had died when her daughter was not yet two years old.

Tilara couldn't remember anything about her mother, even though she had tried and tried. She had stood in front of the portrait many times, commanding it to bring a memory of her mother. But the picture only echoed the words she had heard her father say again and again: "Lindy was what you call a beautiful woman. A truly beautiful woman."

Her father's words and the everywhere pictures told Tilara that she could never be pretty. Being pretty was to look like the unplayed-with china white baby dolls that slept on the shelves of Tilara's closet. Images she saw as the opposite of herself.

Now, even in the graceful shadows of a reflection, Tilara could see no other picture of herself but the one she always carried inside. It was her most powerful image. It wrapped around most of her joys, even the one of welcome she knew she would get at the end of her ride.

"Here's my Tilara," Aunt Cloelle would say. It was what she always said after their time apart. "My sweet Tilara. Just look at my baby!"

Tilara blew her breath onto the window. "Yeah," she muttered to the uneven puddle of fog settling on top of her reflection. "Just look at me."

She turned away from her window mirror. After a moment the muffled chant of the steel wheels racing down the tracks caught her up in a new rhythm.

So what, who cares. So what, who cares. So what, who cares…

When Mr. Morris came to pick up her luggage, Tilara followed him into the narrow Pullman corridor.

"Do we have much farther to go?" she asked.

"Almost there," he called over his shoulder. "We just passed McKendree. Prince is right around the corner."

McKendree.

The word hummed in the back of her mind. Something both forgotten and remembered. And pushed back again as Mr. Morris kept on.

"Been quite awhile since you were in the middle of all of these grand West Virginia hills," he said. "Your aunt says you haven't been this way since you were little. No more than five, she said."

Tilara stared at Mr. Morris with wide eyes. How did he know she had an aunt? Or that she had been here before? How did he know anything about her?

Mick Morris placed Tilara's bags in line with the others stacked by the door and turned to her. His eyes twinkled at the surprise he saw in her face.

"Your Aunt Cloelle and I have known each other for years," he said. He stretched out the ls in her aunt's name as if enjoying the sound of it.

Clo-llle.

"Aunt Clo…um, she didn't tell me…" Tilara felt her words stumbling.

Mick Morris patted Tilara's shoulder. "Probably figured I'd tell you myself. That's what I meant to do right after you boarded, but I got so busy with everything. Then this morning when I brought in your breakfast -- "

He knows Aunt Cloelle. That's why he served me breakfast in my room. She asked him to.

The thought crowded Tilara's mind and made her miss some of Mr. Morris's words.

" – your visit," he was saying.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Morris," she said. "What about my visit?"

Editorial Reviews

Tilara does not remember her mother, who died when Tilara was almost two, but she has grown up studying photographs of the light-skinned lady, "the loveliest woman who ever lived," according to Tilara's exacting father. Comparing her own "dark chocolate" skin to her mother's complexion ("the color of cream"), Tilara is convinced she will never reach her father's ideal of prettiness, nor can she imagine any other kind of good looks. In this intimate coming-of-age novel set in 1948, Belton (the Ernestine and Amanda novels) prods readers to reflect upon stereotyped notions of beauty as they follow 14-year-old Tilara's journey of self-discovery. Spending the summer with Aunt Cloelle in West Virginia, Tilara enjoys a new sense of freedom and unconditional acceptance. In a neatly orchestrated turning point, she agrees to do volunteer work at McKendree, the retirement home where her aunt is employed. Residents and fellow teenage volunteers embodying diverse points of view, backgrounds and personalities open Tilara's eyes to age-old prejudices about skin color as well as her own heritage. Although the novel becomes too cluttered with tangential issues and unresolved romantic triangles, the author's portrayal of her heroine's maturation remains persuasive and thought-provoking. Ages 10-up. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 6-9-A touching, coming-of-age drama set in 1948. Tilara Haynes, 14, lives with her rigid preacher father in Boston and has always felt slighted by his praise of her long-deceased, light-skinned mother's beauty. She is delighted to accept her Aunt Cloelle's offer to spend the summer with her in West Virginia, where the family has lived for generations. Cloelle, dark-skinned and thoughtful, provides Tilara with the support and understanding she needs to develop a new love for her own deep-chocolate skin. Over the course of the summer, Tilara is aware of the color distinction within the black community, but she builds new friendships and an appreciation for her cultural heritage while working with other young people at the eponymous McKendree, a residential home for African-American seniors. The mountain scenery provides an elegant backdrop for the action, but the strength of this book is the evocative, finely crafted characterizations. Through the multiple perspectives of the young people, readers see that outward appearances are often deceiving. The plot hangs delicately but tenaciously-like wisteria on a pine-on the theme of true beauty and self-acceptance. McKendree fills an all-too-often forgotten niche, and provides a good sounding board for teens who are going through a similar exploration of self.-Lisa Denton, J. S. Russell JHS, Lawrenceville, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

School Library Journal

A period piece set in a small West Virginia town in 1948, this is an unusual coming-of-age story that is both culturally specific and universal. Fourteen-year-old Tilara, an African-American, "could see no other picture of herself but the one she always carried inside." Surrounded by photographs of her dead mother with cream-colored skin and silky hair and by memories of china white dolls, shy, dark-skinned Tilara is convinced of her unattractiveness. When she visits her aunt, Tilara is headed for a rare summer of freedom from her controlling, though loving, father that will change both their lives. The action centers around McKendree, a home for elderly African-Americans, where teenagers meet each week to do "community service." As told by Tilara and the others, this is also a tale of tangled summer romance, an element which transcends predictability as it unfolds entertainingly through the multiple perspectives of the characters. It is through the eyes of the likable, if manipulative, March that readers understand Tilara is beautiful. McKendree, by way of parallel, is a place whose purpose masks astonishing beauty. In the end, the romantic entanglements are realistically resolved and Tilara and her father have learned to see each other in new ways. The story is bracketed by an oblique, but key, poetic opening and closing. Although stereotypical standards of beauty are not limited to one race ("blondes have more fun"), what distinguishes this book is its honest exploration of prejudice as it existed within a culture—and perhaps still does. (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews