Summary Of Susan Crandall's 'Whistling Past The Graveyard'
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Out of the many choices of books on the novels list, I chose to read Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall. In this book, a nine-year old girl named Starla Craudelle runs away from home and goes through a tough journey that teaches her multiple lessons. Starla dreamed of reuniting with her mother, who had left her when she was three to become famous singer. Her father was always working, so she basically just lived with her grandmother, who she calls Mamie. In her point of view, Mamie was being way too tough on her. On Fourth of July, Starla was grounded and was to stay home doing nothing for hitting a boy named who she found very annoying. Starla defied her grandmother and decided to go to the parade. All she was going to do was see the parade, but she got caught by a friend of her grandmother’s, Mrs. Sellers. Mrs.Sellers tried to get Starla back to her house but Starla was afraid of getting punished again, so she ran away. It was not just a simple running away for a little time, she actually decided to go to Nashville where she believed her mother was at, becoming a famous singer. Starla ran into an African American woman named Eula, who was carrying a white…show more content… They actually started living with Miss Cyrena for a while. Miss Cyrena helps Eula get into a baking business and earn money. This part of the journey was where Starla started to learn her lesson on segregation, Civil Rights Act, and Voting Right Acts for African Americans. Learning about these things changed Starla and allowed her to realize some important things. At one point she thought, “I started to feel a little guilty about my skin, even though I couldn’t help the way I was born” (151). This was when Miss Cyrena told her about wanting equal rights but change is hard to make. After hearing about these things from Miss Cyrena, Starla started to notice more things about how tough life was for