Editorial Content for Whistling Past the Graveyard

Susan Crandall’s latest novel takes place in the summer of 1963 and introduces readers to nine-year-old Starla Claudelle, who runs away from home to be with her mother in Nashville and is offered a ride by a black woman who is traveling with a white baby. As the two unlikely companions make their long and sometimes dangerous journey, Starla’s eyes are opened to the harsh realities of 1963 southern segregation.

A nine-year-old girl runs away from her Mississippi home in 1963, befriends a lonely woman suffering loss and abuse, and embarks on a life-changing road trip.

Whistling past the graveyard. That’s what Daddy called it when you did something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear...

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla’s destination is Nashville, where her mother went to become a famous singer, abandoning Starla when she was three. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. Now, on the road trip that will change her life forever, Starla sees for the first time life as it really is --- as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.