Have you ever tried to read a book that was so hard you wanted to quit? How about a book that you almost put down, but keep coming back to, even though it was hard?

Well, that was me with Midnight Without a Moon (2017) and A Sky Full of Stars (2018) by Linda Williams Jackson. Now that I’ve finished them both, I’m so glad I stuck with them!

“This land was my land too. And I had a right not to let anybody chase me away from it the way they had done Mama and Mr. Pete. All that land. And he sold it to rent something called an apartment.” Rose Lee Carter, Midnight Without a Moon

A Sky Full of Stars was one of the new library books on display on “Bring your child to the library Day” at the beginning of February. I didn’t know anything about it or Mrs. Jackson, but the short blurb on the back of the dustcover made me curious.

It wasn’t until I got home and was a couple of chapters in that I realized I was coming in halfway through the story. Fortunately, my library had a e-version of the first book of the duo, Midnight Without a Moon, available. I was able to check it out without having to sneak back into the library.

Two books. One Story.

Midnight Without a Moon and A Sky Full of Stars mostly takes place in Stillwater, Mississippi during 1955. Stillwater is a small cotton-farming town where thirteen-year-old Rose Lee Carter and her brother Fred Lee are being raised by her grandparents. Her “Papa” is a tenant farmer on Mr. Robinson’s cotton plantation and her grandmother takes care of the large, beautiful Robinson home.

From the start it’s clear Rose has a hard life. She and her brother have been left with a grandmother who rules her home with a leather strap, her Mama’s re-married and is raising another family, and she doesn’t remember much about her father, who lives in the next town over.

Add to that, Rose has a quick wit and a stubborn streak, which can cause a lot of trouble for an African American girl living deep in the segregated South. Her greatest dream? Following her favorite aunt’s steps and leaving the South far behind for a new life up north.

That changes when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago visiting family in Stillwater, is murdered by two white men for whistling at a white woman. As tensions and violence continues to escalate against the black community, Rose and other children her age are forced to ask themselves what kind of future they want for themselves and for their families.

Will they stand up for their freedoms and their rights to live side-by-side, equally, with their white neighbors? Will they flee the only homes they’ve ever known, hoping for a better life elsewhere? Or will they, like so many of the older generation, continue to live and die in fear of losing what little they have?

Who is this story for? Everyone. But not everyone is ready to read it.

It’s important to remember that even though Midnight Without a Moon and A Sky Full of Stars are fiction, they’re based on events that really happened.

There’s a lot of hard things about this story: family abuse, teen pregnancies, racism, and racial violence, just to name the big ones. These books are written for upper middle schoolers, and I don’t recommend them for readers under 11. Not unless mom and dad think they’re ready to read a story like this, anyway.

Because of the time period, it also includes characters who use certain words about others that I hope never come out of your mouth.

When you read this, be sure you have someone around that you can talk to about your thoughts and feelings. Trust me, you’ll have lots.

All in all, I’m giving both books 4.5 dark chocolate eggs. If these books aren’t already on your middle school or public library shelves, they should be. They’re very well written and don’t talk down to the reader. They’re also a great way to start a family or class discussion about US history and how it relates to where we stand as a country today.

I struggled at first about writing this review. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it. Part of it was because I was afraid of what others might think. Part of it was because it made me question what I think. And that’s a sign of a good book.

In the end, like Rose and her friends, I made a choice to share with you because these same stories could just as easily be written if Rose was growing up in 2018 instead of 1955. Midnight Without a Moon and A Sky Full of Stars remind us that even when it’s hard and even if it costs us, we should never be afraid to shine a light into the darkness.

It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to move forward from here.

Note: No goods or services were exchanged for this review. The opinions belong solely to the reviewer.