Beyond Mayfield - Hardcover

Grade 3-5-The kids of Mayfield Crossing (Putnam, 1993) return in this story set in the early '60s in a small Pennsylvania town. While the characters may fall more easily into place for those who have read the first book, and frequent references are made to events that took place in it, this sequel does hold up on its own. Meg and her friends are still bused from their idyllic, integrated town to a school in which the black children are not readily accepted by their classmates or by all of their teachers. Mrs. Davis has preconceived notions about Meg, the only black child in her class, that are both unjust and disturbing. While her situation at school is cause for worry, it pales in comparison to what's going on in Mayfield Crossing. Sam Wood has returned from the Navy and decided to join the Freedom Riders in their efforts to register black voters. It is difficult for the children to comprehend events in the turbulent South, and the issues are not clearly explained here. Meg and her friends are more concerned about the threat of bombs from Russia; even Sam's death, and the decision of the town hermit to take up where Sam left off, does not shed enough light on this historical period for young readers. The easy camaraderie among these youngsters and their realistic reactions to the events around them are appealing; adults will need to fill in the facts to make this story really come to life.
Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nelson shines at limning some of the misunderstandings and misreading of adults that are part of every childhood in this sequel to Mayfield Crossing (1993), but is more intent on evoking a time and place than in telling a story. Meg lives in the idyllic town of Mayfield Crossing, where blacks and whites live together in harmony, but attends school in Parkview, where, in the early 1960s, it's not quite so perfect. Some of her classmates are bigots, and her substitute teacher, Mrs. Davis, loses a pen and focuses on Meg as the thief. When Lucky, the white older brother of her close friend and neighbor Dillon, joins the Freedom Riders and is killed, Dillon blames Meg's family for talking him into going; Meg begins to wonder if in fact they are responsible. The era, which included bomb shelters, air raid drills, and civil rights, is more tangible than the story; Meg leaves her protected world and moves into a somewhat more recognizable one, but many elements are either the stuff of fantasy (even the racist bully has a good heart and a hard life) or clich (the town eccentric, whom the children believe to be a murderer, is really a guardian angel). (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.