Leaving Atlanta

Description

It's the end of summer in Atlanta, and fifth-grade classmates Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison will discover that back-to-school means facing everyday challenges in a new world of safety lessons, terrified parents, and constant fear. Because it was the summer during which Atlanta's African-American children were vanishing. The moving story of their struggle to grow up and survive shimmers with the piercing, ineffable quality of childhood, as it captures all the hurts and little wins, the all-too-sudden changes, and the merciless, outside forces that can sweep the young into adulthood and forever shape their lives.

Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, including Silver Sparrow, The Untelling, Leaving Atlanta, and An American Marriage, which was an Oprah's Book Club Selection and winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as appearing on Barack Obama's summer reading list and year-end roundup. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.

"Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation."--Essence