Description: This semi-autobiographical novel is set in a small, rural Alabama community during the height of World War II. At that time, the modern Civil Rights Movement was scarcely in its infancy. The main characters are two ten-year-old sons of sharecroppers--one black and one white. Amid the difficulties, deprivations, and disadvantages resulting from living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, they share a friendship that carries them through tough times and enriches their lives with joy. A terrible sequence of events threatens that friendship and rocks their world. About the Contributor(s): John H. Hayes is Franklin N. Parker Professor Emeritus in the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He has authored and edited numerous academic volumes and written a collection of popular essays: If You Don't Like the Possum, Enjoy the Sweet Potatoes: Some Principles for Travel along the Road of Life (Cascade Books). This is his first novel.