The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones
It's the summer of 1955. For Ethan Harper, a biracial kid raised mostly by his white father, race has always been a distant conversation. When he's sent to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in small-town Alabama, his blackness is suddenly front and center, and no one is shy about making it known he's not welcome there. Enter Juniper Jones. The town's resident oddball and free spirit, she's everything the townspeople aren't—open, kind, and accepting. Armed with two bikes and an unlimited supply of root beer floats, Ethan and Juniper set out to find their place in a town that's bent on rejecting them. As Ethan is confronted for the first time by what it means to be black in America, Juniper tries to help him see the beauty in even the ugliest reality, and that even the darkest days can give rise to an invincible summer . . .
The stifling Alabama heat pressed down, thick and unforgiving. It was nothing like the cool, damp air of Washington.
You stepped off the bus in Ellison, a small town that felt like it was stuck in time.
Eyes followed you, lingering stares that held a weight you hadn't felt before. Whispers, barely audible but sharp, seemed to follow your every move.
The air crackled with an unspoken tension, a stark contrast to the polite indifference you were used to.
This was different. This was Alabama, 1955, and suddenly, the color of your skin felt like the only thing anyone saw.
