Stella by Starlight (30 page)
Read Stella by Starlight Online
Authors: Sharon M. Draper
Roosters never look beyond the fence. I doubt if they ever think about flying.
But I do.
Union Mills, North Carolina. Yes, this is for you. Thank you for the stories on the porches late on summer nights. Thank you for the lightning bugs and the sweet tea. Thank you for the memories you didn't even know you were creating.
Thank you, Lord, for the release from the black hole of “wordlessness” I found myself in a couple of years ago. I will never again smirk about the pain of not being able to find the right words. Sometimes they hide in deep, dark places. Thank you for the light.
Thank you to my editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, for giving me the tools to work through the pain, for understanding and space and time, which in the world of publishing is a supreme and precious gift.
Thank you to my friend and agent Janell Walden Agyeman, for her strength and encouragement and complete belief in the power of the spirit, and the wisdom of the ages, and for her acknowledgment of the ancestors to hold us up and lead us onto our designated path of light.
Thank you to the National Association of Black Storytellers, who inspire me each year, and who taught me the nuances and subtlety of storytelling, the secret voice of the drummer, and how to weave our history into story, to weave culture into fiction.
Thank you to my parents for their continued complete belief in me, (Mom, your story is coming nextâlook out!), and to my husband and children and grandchildren for their love and support.
SHARON M. DRAPER
was inspired to write this book after coming across the diary of her grandmother, who, although she had been forced to stop going to school in fifth grade, insisted on writing each night by the light of the moon. Sharon's most recent middle-grade novel,
Out of My Mind
, was a
New York Times
bestseller for over a year and won more than twenty state reading awards. She is the two-time Coretta Scott King Awardâwinning author of
Copper Sun
and
Forged by Fire
. She has also received the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Author Award for New Talent for
Tears of a Tiger
and Coretta Scott King Author Honors for
The Battle of Jericho
and
November Blues
. Her other books include
Romiette and Julio
,
Darkness Before Dawn
,
Double Dutch
, and
Just Another Hero
. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a popular school and conference speaker. For more information visit her online at
SharonDraper.com
.
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster
New York
Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at
ALSO BY SHARON M. DRAPER
Copper Sun
Double Dutch
Out of My Mind
Panic
Romiette & Julio
The Jericho Trilogy:
The Battle of Jericho
November Blues
Just Another Hero
The Hazelwood High Trilogy:
Tears of a Tiger
Forged by Fire
Darkness Before Dawn
Clubhouse Mysteries
The Buried Bones Mystery
Lost in the Tunnel of Time
Shadows of Caesar's Creek
The Space Mission Adventure
The Backyard Animal Show
Stars and Sparks on Stage
WE HOPE YOU LOVED READING THIS EBOOK!
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ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Sharon M. Draper
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Sarah Jane Coleman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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THENEUM
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OOKS FOR
Y
OUNG
R
EADERS
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Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover and Irene Metaxatos
The text for this book is set in Scala OT.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Draper, Sharon M. (Sharon Mills)
Stella by starlight / Sharon Draper. â First edition.
pages cm
Summary: When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.
ISBN 978-1-4424-9497-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-9499-2 (eBook)
[1. PrejudicesâFiction. 2. SegregationâFiction. 3. Civil rightsâFiction. 4. African AmericansâFiction. 5. Ku Klux Klan (1915-   )âFiction. 6. North CarolinaâHistoryâ20th centuryâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D78325Su 2015
[Fic]âdc23
2014038728
