My Mother the Cheerleader: A Novel
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In 1960 New Orleans, thirteen-year-old Louise is pulled out of class by her mother to protest court-ordered integration of her school.Β Louiseβs mother is one of the jeering βCheerleaders.β Each morning the Cheerleaders gather at the school toΒ harass the school's first black student, six-year-old Ruby Bridges, as she enters the building.
After a mysterious man from New York named Morgan arrives in town and takes up residence in the family's crumbling boarding house, Louise's acceptance of "the way things are" begins to crumble.
Through conversations with Morgan and firsthand observations, Louise begins to wonder about the morality of the Cheerleadersβ activitiesβandΒ everything Louise thinks she knows about her mother, her world, and herself will change.
In a starred review, Booklist commented: "Readers will be held fast by the history told from the inside as adult Louise remembers the vicious role of ordinary people."
*School Library JournalΒ (starred review) ; **Chicago Tribune
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Robert Sharenow is an award-winning writer and television producer. He is the author of the middle-grade novel The Girl in the Torch, as well as the teen novels My Mother the Cheerleader and The Berlin Boxing Club. Since its publication in 2012, The Berlin Boxing Club has been named a Sydney Taylor Book Award winner and an Amelia Walden Award finalist, and has received multiple received multiple starred reviews, as well as a spot on ALAβs Best Books for Young Adults list.Β The novel has been published in several countries and languages and is perennially taughtΒ in high school curriculums in the United States and around the world.Β Sharenow lives in New York with his wife and two daughters.
