Guardian

Loved this book. It was a quick read with a powerful message. I recommended this for a middle school group read. Provides lots of thought-provoking discussion. Themes of friendship and integrity combine with the darker side of black history to pack a punch!

Guardian is haunting. The story is extremely well written. It is both descriptive and so raw that it is uncomfortable to read. That is what I liked about it. The book addresses social issues and mature themes (rape, lynching). Highly recommended as a must-read for teens and adults.

Pros: Your emotions and your thinking will be stretched in new directions as you walk alongside Ansel and Willie in this powerful novel.

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Reviewed by JodiG. for TeensReadToo.com

There was a dark time in the history of the United States when even the best-intentioned people bore silent witness to the atrocities that were being committed by others. A time in which a person had to chose between honesty and personal safety.

It is Tuesday afternoon, a hot summer day in 1946. By Friday night a crime will have been committed, two people will be dead, and fourteen-year-old Ansel Anderson will be forever tormented by the events of that night and those that followed.

Ansel lives in Davis, a small town deep in the South. The town was named after the most wealthy and influential family in the area, the family now headed by Zeph Davis. Cap'n Davis has a way of employing his "negroes" in show more such a way that they remain in debt to him, a legal form of slavery.

Everyone in Davis knows the rules of the social order. Black people are expected to address all whites - even the children - as "ma'am" or "sir", they are to move from the sidewalk when a white person is coming, and they are to always be congenial. Even Ansel's best friend, Willie, addresses him as Mister Ansel.

Ansel works in his father's store, along with Willie. Bert Anderson is preparing Ansel to take over the store someday, and to be a successful store owner he knows that Ansel has to start considering who he spends time with and what the other people in town think of him. His mother Maureen feels differently. She doesn't like the way the townspeople act and doesn't want her son to grow up with such narrow-minded influences. She has bigger dreams for Ansel, and, along with Esther Davis, Cap'n Davis's sister, she plants the seeds for Ansel to dream of a future beyond Davis.

An unfortunate storm is brewing in Davis. Entitlement and anger are swelling in Zeph Davis the Third, the teenage son of Cap'n Davis. But who would believe that the son of a wealthy white man could commit such a heinous act as rape and murder when there was a negroe at the scene of the crime?

And even if they do believe, will anyone take the risk of speaking out?

GUARDIAN is an amazingly well-crafted story that grabs your attention and your heart from the very beginning. Author Julius Lester has a way of pulling you along in such a way that you can feel the intensity building with every word until the explosive finale. There is no sugar-coating to this story; it is real and it is raw and borne from a very sad reality in our world.

If you can read and pass along one book this year, let it be GUARDIAN. show less

This book discusses an important but disturbing piece of American history – racially inspired mob lynching in the 1940s South. The book takes on the perspective of several people living in a small town where a shocking and violent rape results in an innocent man’s life being taken. I admire the author tackling such a weighty issue, but I had two major problems with this book. The first is that the slim book focuses on less than a week’s worth of time, and I feel like the characters and writing style both suffer from this. Instead of letting the characters have time to develop, the author has to just come out and say what the characters are supposed to be like – i.e., he is evil, he is good, he is scared, etc. – rather than show more show this through a more elaborate unfolding of the major characters. As a consequence, the reader never really feels like the characters could be real people (instead of caricatures) and can’t feel connected with the characters. The second problem I had is with the writing style. For much of the book, it feels almost like the author is writing stage directions rather than a novel. In addition, I didn’t particularly like the way the omniscient narrator jumps back and forth between the past, present, and future within a sentence or a paragraph. (For instance, note the discontinuity in this paragraph: “As the Reverend walks back into the crowd, people eagerly step forward to shake his hand, pat him on the back, express their condolences over his loss. Many of them will think back on this night when, the very next summer, the Reverend is caught with one of the girls from the Junior Choir, which is what had happened in Atlanta. The Reverend and his wife were barely given time to pack before they left Davis. No one knew where he went, and no one cared.” – p. 87). Personally, I also felt like many of the situations in this book were more adult than young adult in nature. Honestly, the best part of the book for me was the historical facts included in the back of the book. show less

This is the first book that I have read by award-winning author, Julius Lester, and I appreciated his work from the first page. He has a beautiful writing style and effortlessly brings the reader in to the time and place of the story. The book takes place in a small southern town in 1946, through the eyes of a young white boy. Racism is the main theme of the book, but lessons are also learned about honesty, standing up for oneself, and finding your own identity. Mr. Lester does not shy away from difficult subject matter, and his descriptions can be a bit graphic at times, especially for younger readers. However, events like the ones that took place in this story were really happening in this country not too long ago, and it is so show more important that children and teens continue to get exposed to the issues of racism and prejudice. This is a great book for adults to read and discuss with teens (I would recommend for ages 14 and up). show less

This slim book demonstrates the devastation that a lie of omission can create in a family. Ansel and his father come upon a murdered girl’s body and allow another to be accused, knowing who really did it. What followers is a horrible lynching. Ansel’s loss of respect for his father changes his life forever.

Powerful book. Statistics at the end give the tragic data of lynching in the U.S.

This not a feel good novel by any means. It tells it like it was in the South. Where ppl were still referred to as the "N" word and other ppl could control their fate at the drop of a hat. It is sad, but it is history. This would be a good book to read in high school while studying that time period. It is a short/quick read and is easy to understand.