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Book Reviewed by:
Jordan Lynch
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Gracetown, Florida in 1950 is deep in the Jim Crow South and home to the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory school with a dark reputation. After kicking a white teenager while defending his older sister Gloria, Robert Stephens Jr., a Black 12-year-old, is sent to Gracetown, where he is thrown into a world of ghosts, brutal punishments and a superintendent with dark motives and darker secrets. Desperate to save her brother, Gloria pushes back against the blatant racism of her town to fight for Robert's freedom and her own safety. Based on true events at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, The Reformatory is a story of the horrors of the Jim Crow South and a pair of siblings who would walk through hell to get back to one another.
Author Tananarive Due puts a supernatural twist on her brutal tale through the inclusion of haints. These ghosts of boys and ...
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