Wade in the water : a novel
(Book)

Wade in the Water tells the story of an unforgettable summer in 1982 seen largely through the eyes of Ella, a young, mistreated, Black 11-year-old girl who lives with Leroy, who resents her, and Ma, who cannot stand to look at her. Ella's world is changed when Katherine St. James, a mysterious white researcher from Princeton, arrives in their racially divided Mississippi town. The community is immediately suspicious - what does Katherine want, and why is she really there? As tensions mount and rumors swirl, and the tide swings against her, Ella and Katherine are drawn into a complicated friendship that silences the outside world... until it doesn't. Soon the relationship grown increasingly fraught as Ella unwittingly pushes against Katherine's carefully constructed boundaries that guard a complicated past, with secrets that could have devastating consequences.,- From inside cover.