Monday, April 10, 2017

Dreamland Burning

Cover image for Dreamland burning
Dreamland Burning
by Jennifer Latham
Little, Brown and Company, 2017, 371 pages, Young Adult Fiction

When Rowan finds a skeleton on her family's property, investigating the brutal, century-old murder leads to painful discoveries about the past. Alternating chapters tell the story of William, another teen grappling with the racial firestorm leading up to the 1921 Tulsa race riot, providing some clues to the mystery

There wasn't much I didn't like about Jennifer Latham’s Dreamland Burning. Latham writes with a poetry and a rhythm that made me feel like I could hear the characters' voices in my head as I read. She did so without writing colloquially or degradingly, which is no easy feat. The story switches between present-day Rowan and 1920s Will seamlessly, and I was equally engaged in both plotlines. Also, for a mystery with only two or three possibilities, I kept changing my guesses as more information was revealed. This is great story with the bonus of covering an important moment in history that shouldn't be forgotten.

MB

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