Lorena Surducan

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Chapter 1-3

The book starts with a story about a black family, told from the perspective of a little girl
named Essie Mae, the main character of the book. The story takes place somewhere in Mississippi
around 1950-60.
I like the way the writer focuses on each event from little Essies life, and by doing this, the
time moves very slow, year by year. By doing this it helps the reader understand what Essie was
going through and what made her form the character that she had.
Apparently she had a though childhood in her cousins presence. He used to beat her and
her sister everyday. The situation started to decrease even more when her mother found about
about her fathers adventure with another woman. They decided to move to her aunt for a while
and that was the moment when they experienced the most difficult times.
Her mother was the only one taking care of all her three children now, being constrained to
move in a new house very often, due to her moms jobs. She was struggling to give her children all
they needed for school. Her mother had another baby when she met a soldier, but he did not let
her keep him. She knew she could not take care of him, but she did not want to accept that.
The children started school and surprisingly, Essie was doing very well in writing and
reading. She started working for a business family that loved her very much, and even let her ate
with them, at the same table. She did not know why they were so caring, but she knew there was a
secret for why the white people were considered better than the black people.