I may have read this as a child in school. I distinctly remember the bus splashing the children as they walked to school. And I remembered the white boy who liked the children over the protestations of his family, who tried to make him stay away from the black children. I believe that part of this book, if not the whole book, were part of our school curriculum. 
 As a child, I had an aversion to books that did not end happily; even now I tend to steer clear of them. I would not have understood the ending to this book as a youngster. I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. There were very few minorities in town. Racism, discrimination, and violence perpetuated toward someone simply because of skin color would have only touched me intellectually. I would not have felt it, or understood it empathically or emotionally. 
 Now, so many years later, I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I have seen more of the world. I am not as intellectually gifted as I once was. Now, I suffer from an overabundance of empathy. This book hurt me. I felt Cassie's emotional pain at her entry into the completely unfair adult part of the world in which she lived.