A SUMMER OF KINGS

King Roy is the alleged murderer who comes to live with Esther’s eccentric privileged family in their 30-room mansion in the summer of 1963. Daddy’s a director; brother and sister are gifted child actors; and other guests, mostly related to the theater, all fail to appreciate Esther’s own contributions to their world. Pip is a neighbor boy, convinced that he and Esther will marry, but in the initial scene where they scrape up roadkill to feed Auntie Pie’s injured hawks, it becomes clear that independent Esther has a different idea about their future. King Roy’s life in the south hasn’t prepared him for his new digs, but in the process of handling his own anger and conversion to the teachings of Malcolm X, he manages not only to teach innocent Esther about some of the injustices that make up his life, but about her own power to make change happen in the world. The interaction between personal and national politics transforms ideas into emotional reality. The brilliantly portrayed cast of characters illuminates the gut-wrenching history of the time, making tangible the sorrow and hurt that is always personal. (Fiction. YA)