Jo Joe
Sally Wiener Grotta, 2013
Pixie Hall Press
312 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780988387119 (paperback); 9780988387157 (ebook)
Summary
Jo Joe is a mystery of the heart about Judith Ormand who learned hate and bigotry early in life. As a child, she was the only Black—and the only Jew—in a small insular mountain village where she was raised by her white Christian grandparents. Now, she must reluctantly break her vow to never return to the town she learned to hate.
During her one week visit, she buries and mourns her beloved grandmother, is forced to deal with the white boy who cruelly broke her heart, and is menaced by an old enemy. But with her traumatic discovery of a long buried secret, Judith finds more questions than answers about the prejudice that scarred her childhood. (From the publisher.)
Read an excerpt.