Dreamland Burning

Dreamland Burning

YA/adult fiction
"Greenwood [a black neighborhood] burned because white folks--
not all of them, mind you, but plenty--wanted to clear the 'bad
niggers' out of Tulsa. To them, that meant any black man, woman, or
child with the audacity to believe they deserved as much dignity and
respect as a white person. Only those white folks failed, because in
the end, the survivors went right back and rebuilt what had been
theirs from the start."
I went nursery school through college without ever hearing of
the 1921Tulsa, Oklahoma race riots. They were pretty major. I mean
when the smoke had cleared over 1,200 black owned businesses and
family homes and other buildings including a school and a hospital had
been burned to the ground and around 300 people had been killed, some
in truly horrific ways. Then again, there were a lot of events my
very whitewashed history textbooks felt free to omit. Fortunately the
new crop of juvenile and YA books is helping me fill in these gaps in
my knowledge. Jennifer Latham's Dreamland Burning is a perfect example.
Rowan, at 17, is about to start a summer internship her mother
has helped her get to improve her chances of getting into a good
college. Her one day off turns out to be quite eventful. Her mother
has decided to get the family's back house (a more modest structure
behind a fine home in which the help resided in the old days) brought
up to code. The workmen are tearing up the floor when they make a
gruesome discovery: an obviously murdered skeleton. Rowan takes a
paper that had been on the deceased. She wants to solve the mystery
with the help of computers and her best friend, James.
In 1921 Will was a 17-year-old student at Tulsa High School.
His father was the propriotor of a Victrola (brand of record player)
store. His family was having a grand new home built for them. Race
came into his thoughts through several threads. The jealous defense
of a girl he had a crush on resulted in a black man being beaten to
death. The chum he hangs out with the most has been reportedly
developing KKK affinities. And a black (under the table--Will's dad
was not supposed to sell to blacks, but he liked the color of their
money) Victrola buyer and his sassy sister have somehow challenged his
ways of thinking and feeling.
Told in alternating chapters, their stories interweave in a
sophisticated, but colorfully down to earth way. Alert readers will
find themselves eagerly searching for clues as they relish the
protagonists' stories.
Dreamland Burning is a must read on several levels. It's a
finely drawn dramatic narrative. It teaches a lot about a part of
history many would rather leave buried. It's a cautionary tale.
Present day Rowan is challenged to testify against a racist murder her
local police would rather see as an unfortunate accident.
On a personal note, Happy Pi Day! Feel free to celebrate by
commemding a woman in a STEM field and enjoying a piece of pie.
Penobscot County is once again buried in white. They're expecting
this two day snow storm to drop close to two feet. Mother Nature must
be seeing the first day of spring coming up and chuckling, "That's
what you think!"
A great big shout out goes out to women in STEM fields and blizzard
battlers.
jules hathaway






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