the loud silence of francine green by karen cushman

Still I remember the duck and cover drills we had at school in case we were attacked by a nuclear bomb. The setting is the late 1940's and early 1950's during the Cold War and was a little before my time. I identified with the quiet girl who tried to fly under the radar and never get into trouble (and the conflict this caused in standing up with courage for things she belived to be right). I liked this book very much, but I'm not sure how Junior High students will like it. 'I am always uncertain on how to rate a book. and deciding, for the first time, that she wants to be heard. Because of Sophie, Francine finds herself worrying about things that never bothered her before–the atom bomb, free speech, Communists, the blacklist.

The nuns think Sophie is a bad influence on Francine. And she’s happy to be Francine’s best friend. She not only doesn’t care about getting in trouble, she actually seems to be looking for it. Fearless, articulate, and passionate, Sophie questions authority and protests injustice.

She’s comfortable following her father’s advice: “Don’t get involved.” That is, until Sophie Bowman transfers into her class at All Saints School for Girls. In reality, she’s a “pink and freckled” thirteen-year-old, and she doesn’t speak up because she’s afraid she’ll get in trouble. She wishes she were a movie star, brave and glamorous and always ready to say the right thing.

Francine lives down the street from a Hollywood film studio, adores screen dreamboat Montgomery Clift, and sometimes sees her home life as a scene from a movie: Dinner at the Greens.

The loud silence of francine green by karen cushman