The Darkest Child
The Darkest Child
Author: Delores Phillips
Desc: Bakersfield Georgia 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother Rozelle's estimation but she's also the brightest. Rozelle--beautiful charismatic and light-skinned--exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household whether in domestic service in the fields or at "the farmhouse" on the edge of town where Rozelle beds local men for money. But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life but can she break from Rozelle's grasp without ruinous--even fatal--consequences?