The Little Black Schoolhouse ★★★★

Sylvia Griffin

      The Little Black Schoolhouse by Sylvia Griffin takes an interesting folk tale and weaves it into the corruption of society, a little bit of religion, and especially the public school system.

       Linda is a new fifth grade teacher at Northside Elementary school. There she faces prejudices against her race, her gender, and her social status.

       The book opens up with Linda first hearing about the story of La Llorona who she learns to fear. It then skips ahead to her heading to a meeting for her teaching job at a new district that is all about reputation not at all about education or the children (though they make it seem that way).

La Llorona

     Linda is "stuck" with all of the students who are struggling academically and many of which come from some pretty shoddy home lives. As she struggles with the ridiculous rules of the school district, such as the playground and lunchroom duties, meetings, and the dress code for female teachers, she finds her premonition like dreams turn into reality.

      The book sometimes jumps to the point of view of a child just as he or she is about to die as well as the events leading up to the untimely death. In doing so the reader learns about "the others", a mysterious supernatural force that manipulates the children and eventually leads them to committing suicide.

      The children in contact with the "others" all come from what is considered a broken home with divorced parents that may or may not want them and parents who work all the time.

      To protect herself from her pervert of a principal, Linda couples with Leonardo who is sweet, kind, and generous, everything a gentleman should be and in the end they are set to be engaged.

     The ending of the book is abrupt with an interesting, if not far fetched, twist that explains some but not all of the events that occur throughout the book.

     I enjoyed the book due to its idea and themes of corruption and hypocrisy, but the whole book seemed to be one giant hyperbole (exaggeration) from the expectation of the teachers to the "others" and the cult that followed behind them.

    The characters were also interesting but weren't developed a whole lot. The children were given a small back story to explain their reasoning behind being easily manipulated to commit suicide and few adults had a back story at all to explain their actions. Greg, Ted, and Frieda disgusted me and made me want to smack them all across the face for prejudices.

Overall it was a great book, but the ending was too abrupt with a far fetched twist.