Books with title The empty schoolhouse

When it was announced that the parochial schools in Louisiana were to be desegregated, ten-year old Lullah Royall was happier than she's ever been. Now she could attend St. Joseph's in French Grove, where her best friend, red-haired, blue-eyed Oralee Fleury, was already a student. But Lullah's happiness was short lived. Her old sister Emma sensed trouble the minute the two ominous strangers appeared..and trouble was not long in coming. One by one all the students, Negro and white alike, deserted St. Joseph's, frightened away by the threat of violence. Lullah's subsequent decision and its far-reaching results make unforgettable reading.

Four different kids, four different ages, four different lifestyles, but there is one thing they all have in common: A situation they want to escape from. Max Connor is 14 years old. At school, he’s a bully. At his trailer park, poverty-stricken home, he’s a victim of an alcoholic mother and an ever-worsening abusive father. Diane Rockway is the 15 year old daughter of her upper class political conservative father and lawyer mother. She is voted most popular at school until she winds up accidently pregnant. Her parents don’t want the scandal and will stop at nothing to make the ‘problem’ go away. James Doe is a 10 year old orphan who has spent his life bouncing from one foster care to the next, until his rebellious personality gets him transferred to a group home for boys. He’s tired of being unwanted and unloved, so he takes off on his own. Zoe Summers, 12 years old, lives with her father and two siblings, after her mother left when she was young. At school, though smart, she is deemed the weird girl. At home, she is responsible for all the things her mother once was, but she can’t meet all the father’s expectations, just like her mother couldn’t, nor does she want to any longer. Alone, they are stuck and helpless in being minors without rights, but when all their paths cross one day, their desperate needs outweigh their extraordinary differences, and they become the most unexpected of friends when they come across an abandoned 1800’s schoolhouse. No matter what happens or how difficult things get, they are bound by the pact they made. “We’re either all in this together, or we’re not in it at all.”

No teacher had completed a full term at that one-room, eight-grade schoolhouse in over four years. Neither the warnings about unruly students and an unbalanced boys attacks on the school, nor reports about a dangerous bewitched woman deterred young Elsie from accepting the challenge to teach at Shady Grove School tucked deep in the woods on Whitwell Mountain. The shrill blast of the engine whistle sounded within moments of her settling into the first available window seat on the train destined for a coal mining community near her school. The click-clack-click of the wheels along the rails and rhythmic sway of the coach helped to calm her nervousness. Imaginations of the adventures to come played across Elsies mind as she looked out on the fertile valley. No imagination, however, could have prepared her for the fierce trials the new teacher would soon face. When her determination grew weak, Elsie turned to God again and again for the courage, wisdom, and resolve needed to finish her term at The Schoolhouse.

When it was announced that the parochial schools in Louisiana were to be desegregated, ten-year old Lullah Royall was happier than she's ever been. Now she could attend St. Joseph's in French Grove, where her best friend, red-haired, blue-eyed Oralee Fleury, was already a student. But Lullah's happiness was short lived. Her old sister Emma sesed trouble the minute the two ominous strangers appeared..and trouble was not long in coming. One by one all the students, Negro and white alike, deserted St. Joseph's, frightened away by the threat of violence. Lullah's subsequent decision and its far-reaching results make unforgettable reading.