BLACKEYED PEAS & TURNIP GREENS

A Memoir. A better sister novel for To Kill a Mockingbird, this southern bildungsroman, Black-Eyed Peas and Turnip Greens written by 92-year-old first-time author Bonnie Smith, plants our imaginations vividly in the soil of her poverty-stricken childhood and develops in us not pity but endearing admiration. Both a raw confessional and tale of triumph, Smiths voice is as fresh and flourishing as her first day of school amid violent bullies and shaming teachers whose relentless taunting only serve to fertilize a bounty of inner strength that will see her from coast to coast through decades of anti-female working conditions, failed