SIDEWALK STORY

by Sharon Bell Mathis ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1971

Lilly Etta Allen, an ebullient nine-year-old who lives with her mother and twin brothers in an inner city apartment, decides that something is not too cool when she discovers workmen carrying her best friend Tanya Brown's belongings onto the sidewalk. But Tanya, she learns, is not moving -- not voluntarily anyway. Mrs. Brown and her seven children are being ""put out"" for non-payment of rent. Indignant because her mother and other grown-ups are doing nothing to help, Lilly Etta telephones the police and the newspaper and eventually saves her friend from eviction. Lilly Etta's story is told with mild humor, a refreshing absence of sentimentality, and lively dialogue that places her convincingly in both the black ghetto culture and the nation of nine-year-olds everywhere. Five double-page black-and-white illustrations, along with a mostly brownish street (or stoop-and-sidewalk) scene on the jacket, authentically recreate Lilly Etta's world.

Pub Date: April 26, 1971

ISBN: 0140321659

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION