Eileen Harrison Sanchez | splashesofjoy

Giveaway and Tour for Freedom Lessons by Eileen Harrison Sanchez

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Join us for this tour from Sept 28 to Oct 9, 2020!Book Title: Freedom Lessons (a novel) by Eileen Harrison Sanchez
Category: Adult Fiction (18+) , 245 pages
Genre: American Historical Fiction
Publisher: She Writes Press
Release date: November 2019
Content Rating: PG. This book is a clean read. The use of the words Negro, colored and a one time reference use of nigger, though not politically correct by today’s standards, is era specific and not intended in any kind of pejorative sense.

Chosen as a 2020 Pulpwood Queens Book Club pick
2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction (Multicultural)“This powerful tale offers a beacon of hope that individuals can inspire change.”
―Library Journal

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Freedom Lessons begins in Louisiana 1969 as Colleen, a white northern teacher, enters into the unfamiliar culture of a small Southern town and its unwritten rules as the town surrenders to mandated school integration. She meets Frank, a black high school football player, who is protecting his family with a secret. And Evelyn, an experienced teacher and prominent member of the local black community, who must decide whether she’s willing to place trust in her new white colleague. Told alternately by Colleen, Frank, and Evelyn, Freedom Lessons is the story of how the lives of these three purportedly different people intersect in a time when our nation faced, as it does today, a crisis of race, unity, and identity.School desegregation is something we all learn about in history class; perhaps we even remember the striking image of Ruby Bridges being escorted to and from school by the U.S. Marshals. But for most of us in 2019, that’s near the extent of what we understand about that tumultuous time.

Eileen Sanchez, the debut novelist behind Freedom Lessons (She Writes Press, November 12, 2019), draws on her own remarkable experience as a young, white teacher in the Jim Crow South during desegregation, to write her immersive work of fiction inspired by those events. The result is an unusually authentic exploration of a snapshot in history through the eyes of characters that are relatable and unmistakably human—living lives and navigating relationships against the backdrop of extreme societal upheaval. Sanchez has woven a beautiful story not just about desegregation as an abstract concept, but about the people who lived it—and asks us to question our assumptions about that time, and the issues it has left in its 50-year wake.

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Colleen, a white women from the north, had no idea what life would bring her in 1969 when she moves with her military husband to a small southern town and applies for a teaching position. Little does she know it is for the black school, and she is in for much knowledge about people and their unreasonable actions. This story is told through Colleen, Evelyn, An African American teacher at the school, and Frank, an African American student and football player at the school.

I am so glad I was able to read this book. I remember well when all of this was happening in our area. I remember the first black student in our small school. A girl, and she was up for the challenge because whenever people tried to harass her, she had a comeback. And slowly students started liking her. Her personality was hard not to like. I’ve often wondered what happened to her, I would love to see here again. But this didn’t happen to most students back then. People can be cruel, hurtful, do unbelievable things, and just not care how they treat people. And author Eileen Harrison Sanchez does a really great job of picking all this up in telling this story. It is a story that needs to be told and everyone would benefit from reading it. I know I have not only enjoyed this book but I appreciate this author for the detailed research and vivid scenes throughout this book that brought back bad as well as a lot of good memories for me. This is a great historical fiction to read. If you enjoy the 1960’s era, this would be book you need to check out! Freedom Lessons gets a 5 plus stars from me!

A special thanks to the author/ publisher for a copy of this book. I am not required to write a positive review, the opinions here are mine alone. I am disclosing this with my review in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Buy the Book:
Amazon
Bookshop.org ~ Barnes and Noble
Add to Goodreads

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Meet the Author:

Eileen Harrison Sanchez is now retired after a forty-year career in education. She started as a teacher and ended as a district administrator. She has been writing part time for seven years with a writers group in Summit, NJ. Eileen is a member of the Historical Novel Society, Philadelphia Stories Writers Community, Goodreads American Historical Novels Group, and several online writers’ groups. A reader, a writer, and a perennial—a person with a no-age mindset—she considers family and friends to be the most important parts of her life, followed by traveling and bird watching from her gazebo.

connect with the author: website ~ facebook ~ twitter ~ instagram

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