There are those who are angry with the 'Jim Crow' South, there is Miss Pearl, who tries to help the family. There is a character who just wants to teach and help better his peers through reading and writing. Her Mother allows her to attend school the longest but soon decides that it is time for her to leave school and start earning money to help support the household. The narrator, is her dark skinned daughter Tangy May. As stated in the description, she favors (if you can call it favoring) her lighter skinned children. Rozelle is a light skinned woman who could pass for White. This is a book where you want to know what happens next and yet at the same time, you dread what happens next. This book is about pain, hope, determination and survival. As I stated the descriptions are so vivid that the scenes are disturbing. It is not a kind world that this family lives in.

Forcing two daughters to prostitute themselves for money and one to raise money to get her brother out of jail. Abuse is a light word for how she treats her children. Her children also know something is not quite right about their Mother. Was she mentally ill? What she incredibly mean? There is something just off about her and the Author never really tells us what. She has 10 children from different fathers and she is a disturbing woman. The book begins when Rozelle tells her employer that it is her last day of work because she is going to die over the weekend. I found that I could not read this book fast. That is not always a good thing with this book as there is a tremendous amount of abuse in this book. The writing was so wonderful and vivid that I could see/imagine what was happening. Why has this Author not written another book? Perhaps this was the only story she needed to tell.

The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips