by Karyn Parsons. Little Brown Books, 2023
Karyn Parsons is known for her work as both an actor and author. Her mother was a librarian in the Black Resource Center of a library in South Central Los Angeles, a role that would expose her daughter to both history and activism. From this background, Parsons started Sweet Blackberry Foundation to bring little know stories of Black heroes to children. The foundation has developed award-winning series of children’s animated films and books sharing stories of these inspirational lives. Her middle grade books include Flying Free: How Bessie Coleman’s Dreams Took Flight, How High the Moon, and Saving the Day.
Parsons’ brings much of her personal history to Clouds Over California, a middle grade novel set in Santa Monica CA in the 1970s. Stevie is a biracial girl completing her last year of elementary school in a new school. She has new (i.e., no) friends, and her parents have decided to provide her older cousin, Naomi, with more stability, by inviting her to move from Boston to live with them. Parsons developed several storylines that explore secrecy and change. Young readers are introduced to the activism of the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, the politics of Black women’s hair, and issues of women’s rights that developed during the 70s. Naomi is withdrawn in her new school because she is picked on from the first day. She feels the tension between her mom and dad, and her snooping leads her to make assumptions about her parent’s relationship. Stevie will have readers wondering what secrets should be shared, and which shouldn’t.
What Works: Parsons normalizes Blackness by exploring issues relevant to the decade without centering their Blackness. This is a story about a little girl who has lost some of her confidence because she’s lost her friends, and her home seems like it’s on shaky ground. Parsons writes about the issues she brings into Stevie’s life in the confused, naïve, and curious way that a 12-year-old would probably experience them. Readers are right there with Stevie throughout the course of the book while she’s coming to grips with all the change that surrounds her. I like that that this story manages to present complex topics in a way that won’t overwhelm younger readers.
In her appreciate for Black history and its heroes, Parsons uses Naomi’s nascent activism to introduce readers to the Black Panther’s food programs and community engagement. She provides enough of a glimpse of Angela Davis to provoke readers to do some research. Surely, they’ll wonder if this person was real, and why was she so famous.
At the beginning of the book, Stevie’s hair comes undone and gets poofy during her first day at the new school. Her classmates tease her, calling her Charmin, like Charmin the toilet tissue. Hair is such a political thing for Black women! In Clouds Over California, Parsons aligns the revolution of wearing Afros to women’s liberation. Stevie’s first-person narration maintains youthful thoughts and perspectives about the vibrant and full Afros that she sees, and how she feels when both she and her mom change and evolve their hairstyles.
What doesn’t work:
Pass it or grab it: After listening to this as an audiobook, I’d suggest that this middle grade novel would make a great at home or in the classroom read aloud for 5th graders facing the change to middle school. Independent middle grade readers will take something from Stevie’s growing self-confidence. Grab it!
Keywords: biracial; hair; friends; Black Panthers; divorce; secrecy; change; old movies
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