4/5 stars
Black Star, by Kwame Alexander (2024)
TW: Racism, KKK activity, reference to a lynching
This is a sequel to The Door of No Return, which I read last year and loved. That story follows 11-year old Kofi Offin, stolen from his home in present-day Ghana in the year 1860, and sent to America. His tale is interwoven with traditional Asante stories, told to him by his grandfather. In Black Star, Kofi is now the wise old grandfather. In tidbits, we learn what happened after he was taken from his home in Africa, interspersed within the main story of his granddaughter, 12-year old Charley (short for Charlene).
Charley is a young, Black girl living in Jim Crow era Virginia. She loves spending time with her grandfather, her best friend, Willie Green, and, most of all, she loves baseball. She wants to become a professional baseball player, however implausible it may seem for a Southern Black girl at that time. Her mother wants her to focus on school and playing the flute (which she hates).
Charley challenges the neighborhood bully to a baseball game on the night of the church picnic, then scrambles to put together a full team. When the big day comes, the two teams make the fateful choice to cross over "the tracks" to the white part of town, to play in their beautifully manicured park. And since I gave a trigger warning of racism and KKK activity, you can probably guess that it doesn't go well.
This is another realistic, powerful, and quietly, painfully beautiful portrayal of Black history by Alexander. Charley is young and naive but curious and inquisitive. Her parents try to protect her from the evils of the world, while her grandfather argues that she needs to know the truth of what faces their community. And while the latter quarter of the book is sad and difficult, it ends with resilience and hope.
As in Door of No Return, the narrative is told in verse - sometimes leaning more towards poetry, other times more towards a lyrical prose. But don't let that deter you, as it still reads as a sequential, fictional story.
My only wish is that there had been more of Kofi's story. I loved his voice so much in Door of No Return, and had expected the sequel to be a continuation of his story, from where it left off. I liked all the characters in Black Star... just not as much as I liked Kofi in Door of No Return.
UP NEXT: The Traitor, by Ava Glass
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