On Beale Street »

Ronald Kidd is the author of the highly acclaimed Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial, as well as On Beale Street. His novels of adventure, comedy, and mystery have received the Children's Choice Award, an Edgar Award nomination, and honors from the American Library Association, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. He is a two-time O'Neill playwright who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Living in Memphis in 1954, Johnny's world is completely segregated -- until he starts sneaking out to Beale Street at night. Beale Street, with its music clubs, is on the wrong side of the tracks, but it's the only place Johnny can hear the blues, which is all he cares about. It's also near Sun Records, where Johnny finds himself working for Sam Phillips -- and witnessing history in the making when an up-and-coming musician named Elvis records his first song. Nobody has heard anything like it.

All at once Johnny is pulled into a storm of controversy around this new kind of music, just as racial tensions are reaching a breaking point. What started out as a part-time job and a way to get behind the scenes of a record label is now spinning out of control. As songs like Elvis's start rising up the charts, Johnny sees the power music has to bring people together -- while secrets from the past threaten to tear his black-and-white life apart.

In this searing, cinematic novel, acclaimed writer Ronald Kidd tells a coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of race conflict and the birth of rock and roll.

KLIATT

It's Memphis, 1954, and Elvis Presley is just recording his first song. The narrator is Johnny Ross, slightly younger than Elvis, drawn to Beale Street blues (the music of the black community in Memphis). He is working as a janitor at Sun Records, and a witness to Elvis's first success. There is a movement, led by Elvis and Sun Records, to produce new music, a combination of white and black traditions. Johnny himself in the weeks of this novel has his own initiation into the severity of the black/white divide. His curiosity and courage lead him to shocking revelations about his own identity and the true identity of his father and brother. There is an incident of cross burning in the black district of Memphis (based on an historical event), and there is truth-telling about the feelings of the black musicians as they see their music being co-opted by Elvis, without his acknowledging his debt to them. A gripping story, especially for those YA readers interested in the history of rock and roll music. Reviewer: Claire Rosser

PART 2 WHITE

PART 3 GRAY