The Color of a Lie

Johnson, Kim. The Color of a Lie

June 11, 2024 by Random House BFYR

Public library copy

Calvin and his family move from Chicago to Levittown, Long Island, New York in 1955. There have been issues in their neighborhood which have resulted in a family tragedy, and the father is determined to start fresh in their new home. In order to do this, however, the three have to all pass as white, and the mother even goes by Ann instead of Agnes. The father works with a real estate company, but have bought their home from Mr. Vernon, who is very concerned that the neighborhood stay "nice". Calvin feels very uncomfortable hiding his true identity, but has been grilled by his father to limit his interests in music, food, and TV to only "white" topics. Jazz and music by any Black musicians mustn't be mentioned. He gets along decently with the two neighborhood teems his age, Mary and Ben, and starts high school. There, he sees Lily Baker, who is Black. There is a neighborhood some distance from his where properties are sold at prices over market value to Black families, and a portion of these properties are districted to Calvin's high school. Students give Lily a hard time, but Calvin thinks she is very brave, and follows her one day on his cicyle to make sure she is safe. He gets a job helping out Mr. Vernon at his real estate office to make his father happy, but also sneaks across town to meet with Robert, his older brother who has been disowned for being gay and vaguely "Red". Robert is working at a school that takes last chance students, and teaches them music. Calvin would rather live with Robert, but knows that he has to stick it out with his parents so that he can go to college. When he finds out that Emmett Till, a cousin of his best friend Ray, was killed, he begins to doubt whether he can keep up the pretense of being white. He starts to work with two brothers at Roberts, Eugene and Harry, to gather information from the real estate agent about discriminatory practices in Leavittown. There's a lot; higher prices, redlining, and the forcing out of a Black family. After traveling to Virginia to a conference and meeting Thurgood Marshall, Calvin is appalled at the treatment that he and his friends receive when their car breaks down after dark near a "sundown town", and tells his friends Ben and Alex that he is Black. Alex's family is very sympathetic to the plight of Blacks in the area, and promises not to tell anyone, but Ben has a troubled family and is a concern. When Lily is forced out of school, Calvin goes to her neighborhood to talk to her, and finds himself in the middle of violence. He takes Lily, along with her mother and sister, back to his house for safety, and heads to Robert's to get help. There is an altercation that ends in tragedy, and after getting real estate files to Thurgood Marshall, Calvin's family decides to head back to Chicago. Two years later, he is attending Morehouse University, and Eugene and Lily are in college as well. There is a nice list of historical resources in the back. 

Strengths: This was one of those books that put me directly into the main character's shoes and made me feel everything that he was feeling. The post war era doesn't get enough attention, and the fathers who came back were traumatized on many different levels, even though we now think of the 1950s suburbs as some kind of ideal, nostalgic place. Seeing how his neighborhood and school treated Black people from Calvin's point of view as he was passing as white was very intriguing. He tries very hard to keep up the facade, but is deeply unhappy. His brother's views would definitely have been a sore point with a more traditional father at this point in time. Lily's desire to integrate into the white school is spurred by many of the civil rights events of the time, and it's an interesting inclusion to have Calvin and his friends meet Thurgood Marshall. Their trip to Virginia, and references to the Green Book, and thought provoking as well. It's harder to find civil rights era books from a male perspective, so I enjoyed this one. 
Weaknesses: I always think that small, everyday details really make historical fiction, and I could have used a few more of these. There was one instance where a female teacher is described as wearing slacks to school, and I do not think this would have been acceptable anywhere at this time. My mother was not allowed to wear slacks until the 1970s (when skirts were so short!), and they could only be worn as part of a coordinated pant suit with a jacket covering the derriere. Even when I taught in the 1980s, women wore skirts a large percentage of the time. 
What I really think: This was a really interesting look at a specific place and time, and covered a lot of historical issues that I haven't seen covered in a lot of middle grade and young adult books. It's more of a high school book, but would work for an older middle school readers who enjoyed Frazier's Mighty Inside or Bradley's Call Me By My Name.