Betsey Brown

By Ntozake Shange

Book Overview

This is a unique and vividly told novel about a girl named Betsey Brown, an African American seventh-grader growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. While rendering a complete portrait of this girl, author Ntozake Shange also profiles her friends, her family, her home, her school, and her world. This world, though a work of fiction, is based closely and carefully on actual history, specifically on the nationwide school desegregation events of the Civil Rights movement in America's recent past. As such, Betsey Brown is a historical novel that will speak to and broaden the perspectives of readers both familiar with and unaware of America's domestic affairs of 1950s and 1960s. Shange has set her story in the autumn of 1959, the year St. Louis started to desegregate its schools. In May of 1954, in its ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka--a verdict now seen by many as the origin of the Civil Rights movement--the United States Supreme Court outlawed school segregation. The novel is firmly located in the wake of this landmark ruling; the plot of Shange's novel and the history of America's quest for integration during the Civil Rights era are fundamentally entwined. Thus textual references abound to the watershed events at Little Rock's Central High School in the September of 1957, for example, and to "fire-bombings and burningcrosses" in the South as well as "'battalions of police and crowds of crackers'" at a demonstration in St. Louis. Betsey is the oldest child in a large, remarkable, and slightly eccentric African American family. Her father is a doctor who wakes his children each morning with point-blank questions about African history and Black culture while beating on a conga drum; her mother is a beautiful, refined, confident, and strong-willed social worker who is overwhelmed by the vast size of her young family and who cares very little for "all that nasty colored music." Indeed, Betsey's whole existence can be seen as a perceptive, adventuresome, and still-developing hybrid of her parents' most distinctive qualities. Her feelings of internal conflict are often clearer or easier to identify when seen as the collision of her father's dreams and her mother's manners, or her father's music and her mother's cosmetics. There are several fascinating characters in this novel--and encountering, describing, and trying to figure out these characters will appeal to students of all backgrounds--but the two characters who, after Betsey, most influence the directions, themes, and issues of this tale are Betsey's mother and father, Jane and Greer. Their her parents'' difficult marriage, like the difficult era of desegregation that has only begun in St. Louis and the rest of America, is the realistic, conflicted, yet ultimately hopeful backdrop before which Betsey's lip-synching, poem-reciting, soul-searching, truth-seeking, tree-climbing, and fact-finding take place. In fact, her parents'' stubborn disagreements, heartfelt reconciliations, past glories, and future worries are all, at various times in the book, anchored or else set adrift by the activities of theireldest daughter (and first teenager!). Betsey's running away sends her parents into a vicious fight, while her subsequent return seems to bring them closer together (if only temporarily). As a novel, Betsey Brown is panoramic yet personal. It tells us what being a Black student in the early days of American desegregation was like by showing us what being Betsey Brown is like. This is an episodic, character-driven saga of the Black experience in St. Louis at the end of the "Fabulous Fifties," but it is also a story about the many and various--and basically familiar--growing pains of a precocious, passionate, spunky young protagonist. We see Betsey fall in love; make friends; say prayers; argue with, look after, inspire, and ignore her younger siblings; run away from home; return to those who love and value her above all else; and switch from a school she knows and enjoys to a school on the other side of town where she is a minority and an outcast. We see Betsey outside the very door of her womanhood, we are told all about the steps and path that have brought her to this door, and we are left to wonder at what she will find beyond it.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312077270
• ISBN13: 9780312077273
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20.3" x 14.0" x 14.0"

Customer Reviews

Growing Up Black

BETSEY BROWN is the story of a young Black girl growing up in St. Louis in the late 1950's. She is the eldest child in a large upwardly mobile family. Her father is a doctor and a socially conscious "race man" who takes his children to sit-ins and protests. Her mother is a social worker who wants to shield her children from the racially charged environment in which they are coming of age. Like any young girl, Betsey fantasizes about her young life, longs for the attention of a certain young boy and is fascinated with the idea of love. While she is going through the ups and downs of growing up, integration takes place in the South. Betsey and her siblings are bussed to white schools in the name of racial advancement. The children have fears of what may lay ahead of them and the parents are conflicted in their decision. While in their new enviroment the children have various experiences and emotions. Betsey often feels like the weight of the entire race is on her shoulders and no one understands her struggle. Ntozake Shange gives all of the children who grew up in the era of southern integration a voice in BETSEY BROWN. The storyline is written in simple language with traces of southern dialect dispersed throughout. The novel gives a more visceral feel to the fear and uncertainty that children and their families had during the time of integration in America. This fear was pushed aside for the overall principle of advancement and not told in history books. While reading the novel, I felt like I was taken back in time to experience what, until now, I have only read about in textbooks and I enjoyed it. My only complaint is that Betsey's story ended too soon. Reviewed by Aiesha Flowers of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Family Life

Betsy and her family is just trying to make it through everyday family problems. Betsey and her siblings school is integrated for the first time. The story is set in St Louis 1959. Betsy is a nice read.

Betsey is ME!

Betsey Brown is me when I was 13, and is still me 11 years later! I saw myself in the book and I was pleasently surprised to find that out. I fell in love with the book within the first few pages. The only complaint that I have with the book is that its not LONGER!!!!

Writing at it's best

Betsey Brown is a coming of age story set in 1957 St. Louis. Betsey has to come to terms with being of the first to integrate a white school, but Shange does not give us the same-ol'-same-ol' blues about how bad it is. Betsey is an individual and the experience has its ups and downs. What is very interesting is her home life and the issues many black girls face. Her mother is lighter skinned with relaxed hair. Her maternal grandmother, also light skinned, is color struck. Her father is very black and not too well-liked by the grandmother though he is a good provider. Betsey wonders why her mother's hair is different than hers and finds out innocently during her first trip to the beauty shop. The book also has the reader experience Betsey's first experience with boys. She truly has no idea what to do when a boy comes to visit. Of course grandma is snooping. Betsey Brown is not as fast as most girls today, but I think her innocence is appealing, and most girls still have the same issues no matter how fast or slow they are. Shange is lyrical and truly literary, however, I think kids today will enjoy the book if it is "book-talked" correctly. As a matter-of-fact, I think it belongs on school reading lists. The book is not the same ol' black vs. white blues. The book is about being young, black, and female, per se.