"Twelve-year-old Beka Lamb lives in Belize City, "a relatively tolerant town" where people with their roots in Africa, the West Indies, Central America, Europe, North America, Asia, and other places, "lived in a kind of harmony. In three centuries, miscegenation, like logwood, had produced all shades of black and brown, not grey or purple." Beka knows her family's history from Gran, who tells of "befo' time," when they were slaves, and now, when Beka can win an essay contest at the Convent school: "Befo' time...Beka would never have won that contest....But things can change fi true."..."
"Twelve-year-old Beka Lamb lives in Belize City, "a relatively tolerant town" where people with their roots in Africa, the West Indies, Central America, Europe, North America, Asia, and other places, "lived in a kind of harmony. In three centuries, miscegenation, like logwood, had produced all shades of black and brown, not grey or purple." Beka knows her family's history from Gran, who tells of "befo' time," when they were slaves, and now, when Beka can win an essay contest at the Convent school: "Befo' time...Beka would never have won that contest....But things can change fi true."..."
(J.L., p. 249)