Learning by Heart

Without any bells and whistles, this first novel powerfully describes friendship and race relations in a Southern town in the early 1960s. Ten-year-old Rachel is reluctant to move from the tiny apartment behind her parents' 24-hour grocery to a house on the other side of town just because her mother is having a baby. So she reserves her judgment about Isabella, the 23-year-old ``colored'' woman hired to watch her and keep house. But by the time Rachel starts fifth grade and baby brother Jesse is born, Isabella is enmeshed in the family's domestic life. In a passage whose subtle humor may go over young readers' heads, Rachel's mother dispenses with having Isabella eat in the kitchen and ride in the back seat of the car, as do most ``colored maids.'' Rachel befriends Callie, the lone African American in her school, but only when enlightened by her acid-tongued ``white trash'' neighbor Pamela does Rachel realize her subtle prejudice in telling Callie that ``you're just as good as us'' (``Maybe she was better. Maybe she didn't want to be like us''). Young paints a detailed portrait of Southern life at a child's-eye level, and in so doing shares adult and thought-provoking insights into racism, economics and family ties. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)