I'm still raw from reading this book. A young Mexican girl who lost her mother due to childbirth is sent with her brother and sister (twins) from her grandparents' home to East Texas to live with her stepfather (the Twins' father). He is not a great guy to Naomi, but the twins like him. The siblings all meet Wash, an African American who is awesome and caring, and they all make a strange, happy family. But this is the 1930's, and the relationship is not accepted. At all. And then bad happens.
The story is set around the New London elementary school explosion, which I knew nothing about. But apparently it is the deadliest school disaster in America. And it was gruesome. This is not a light read, and there are some very adult situations, but it is a book that exposes more of the country's racial cruelty to anyone who is not white. This book definitely goes in the We Need Diverse Books shelf.