"Y'all hear a Yankee around here? I think I heard a Yankee." It was this simple insult from Saranne Russell that started it all. Or maybe it was the bodies of three civil rights workers being discovered. Either way, Alice Ann Moxley has just moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and she has to get used to being a Yankee among the Southerners by adjusting to, among other things: a neighbor named for a late Confederate general, Valerie Taylor, who is a Negro girl who must attend an all-white school, a pink Cadillac full of Ku Klux Klan members inside, and Saranne Russell and her gang of girls, who do awful things to the kind-hearted Valerie.  

The author of the book, Mary Ann Rodman, based the book loyally on her life at the age of eleven. Like Alice's dad, Rodman's was an FBI agent transferred by President Johnson to Mississippi . Rodman has created a world in this book that most aspiring writers can only dream of one day developing.

When I first saw this book, I must admit I had very little faith in the story, and whether or not it would hold my attention. The book turned out to be not only one of the best I've ever read, but one that gets the reader thinking. I didn't feel like I was just there with Alice , I felt like was living it alongside her! I would recommend this book to anyone in 5th to 10th grade, because some of the concepts need to be taken seriously by an older kid.  

Alice Ann Moxley, the main character, has a likable and memorable personality. Alice 's position with cliques in Yankee Girl reminded me of Cady, the main character in the movie "Mean Girls." Cady is accepted by the popular crowd, but she doesn't like what they do and feels as if she is smothering her real self deep inside. Alice has the same situation. At first, she longs terribly to be one of the Cheerleaders, but once she is accepted, she can't stand the girls labeled as her friends. She wants to make friends with poor, hated Valerie Taylor, but in doing so, she would be labeled something much worse, and, according to her neighbor, blacks and whites just aren't supposed to be friends.  

I really enjoyed this book, and I think you, as the future reader, will too.