by G. Neri
Amazon rating: 4.2/5.0, grades 3-7
Good Reads: 3.77/5
Common Sense Media: age 9+
4Rbooks: 4/6, Grades 4+
Synopsis:
Famous American authors Truman Capote and Nell Harper Lee met as children in Monroeville, Alabama. This book is a fictional account, but based on some true stories, of their lives when Truman was 7 and Nelle 6.
The book is a series of adventures between Tru and Nelle. They enjoyed playing and using their imagination, especially when pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson style detectives. They also get involved in a town mystery with some danger involved. They decide to solve the case of a drugstore theft and it take them into places and situations they were not expecting.
Parental Guidance: Medium High
The setting of this story is the South, early 1930’s. As such, depictions of race relations are very accurate for that time period and Southern setting. Word usage includes colored, Negro, and dark-skinned. There is bullying, a physical confrontation where someone is hurt, and there is an appearance of the KKK and burning crosses.
For me, one of the most uncomfortable scenes in the book comes early when Tru overhears his mother talking to the relatives she has sent Tru to live with. She is complaining and detailing about how she feels about Tru and being a mother. It’s not a nice moment and would be a horrible thing for any child to hear, especially children living in dysfunctional homes who worry how their parents feel about them.
Recommendation:
If this book was a business, I would accuse it of false advertising. When I first saw it, based on its font style and simplistic drawings, I thought it might be a good book for some of my below grade level 4th grade readers. It showed a boy and girl on the cover and I thought it would be a cute story about friendship.
Then I saw the size of the book, 300+ pages, and learned from the subtitle that it is based on the childhood friendship of Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee, two of the most famous authors in American literature. I started to reconsider my original opinion.
After reading this book, I can recommend it, but not for primary grades. It’s definitely a middle school read, even though the main characters are 6 and 7 years old in the story. 4th-6th graders could handle it with guidance from their parents. Teens and adults who are familiar with Capote’s and Lee’s work would enjoy this tale of their friendship.
Because of the mature themes, this would be a tough read aloud in class, but could be used in a small group of advanced readers.
There is an epilogue to the story that I think adults would enjoy reading which gives a quick synopsis of Capote’s and Lee’s life after this period of their life ends. Apparently, they continued to be friends into adulthood.
There is a second book to the series called Tru and Nell: A Christmas Tale. I have not read that one yet, but probably will.
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