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Reviewed by Charles Ashbacher for Readers' Favorite
Camp Birdsong: A Night Under The Stars is written by Dionne Lorae Holly. Joalee is a young black girl growing up in the south in the early years of the twentieth century. Her father is the preacher at a black Methodist church and it is a close and happy family within their segregated portion of the world. Life is good for them until their house burns down and they are homeless. It is at this point where Joalee experiences segregation, even when an elderly white woman with a large house offers them temporary shelter. However, her kindness is tempered by her requirements that they enter through the back door and are confined to a former maid’s room. Joalee is an energetic and intelligent girl with the goal of being a teacher. Despite being a bit overwhelmed by the change in her environment after she arrives at Tusk College, a school for black students, Joalee does well. This is the first step in a career that is a success based on her determination to overcome the opposition of segregation and to create scouting opportunities.
This is an excellent book of historical fiction; in this case it is based on the early years of the American Girl Scouts when segregation was the law in the southern states. It is a fascinating historical fact that the scouting movement originated in England and was founded by British General Baden-Powell. He based many of the activities he incorporated into scouting on his observations of the Zulu women he encountered while he was stationed in southern Africa. This is a book where the veil of fiction should be removed from the book after the student reads it. This is a major success story of black people in the United States creating opportunities for young black children to learn the ideals and skills that are imparted by participation in scouting. The last section of the book partially removes the fiction, describing the origin of scouting and how it was created in the United States after it was first developed in England. It also explains the role that Josephine Groves Holloway played in creating the first Girl Scout camps for black girls in Tennessee.
