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Reviewed by:
  • Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia
  • Deborah Stevenson
Williams-Garcia, Rita Clayton Byrd Goes Underground. Amistad/HarperCollins, 2017 [176p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-221591-8 $16.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-221594-9 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys         R Gr. 4-6

Correction:
There was a misspelling in the print issue. "Byrd" was mistakenly spelled "Bird". The online version has been corrected.

Clayton Byrd considers his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, to be his best friend; Cool Papa is his confidant and buddy, he reads Clayton bedtime stories, and most importantly, he's a charismatic bluesman who's inducting Clayton and his "blues harp" (harmonica) into the brotherhood. When Cool Papa dies, Clayton is devastated, and his pain is exacerbated by his mother's furious purging of her father's possessions from their home. Determined to find a connection with the grandfather he's grieving, Clayton skips school and heads to Washington Square Park to meet up with the bluesmen there where Cool Papa used to play. Encountering a group of illegally busking teens on the subway, however, he's sucked into their hip-hop performance and then into their group, since one of them snatches his—formerly [End Page 431] Cool Papa's—hat and won't give it back, forcing Clayton to keep with them as the troublemaking ramps up. Williams-Garcia writes with keen sympathy about a boy who lost the key adult figure in his life and his rage at his mother's making the loss worse. While his mother is unfairly harsh about Cool Papa's influence and belongings, the narration shifts focalization to her to shed light on her understandable anger at the father who left her behind for a naval career and music and now gives freely to his grandson the attention he denied his daughter. The ending has the subtle movement of a short story rather than a more dramatic climax, but sharp readers will see the important shift. An ebullient author's note discusses the blues and the growth of hip-hop.

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