I really enjoyed reading this book. I wanted to comment on how Betsey and the other children in the house had a lot of responsibilities to uphold. I can see how the children should be responsible for themselves and maybe taking on a few chores, but I felt Betsey had to many responsibilites only being 13. She was expected to wait on hand and foot for her mother, and take care of her siblings. In my eyes an adolescent should be just that. A child should be able to have fun, learn about boys the hard way, learn from their mistakes, and play outside after school and before bed. The children appeared to be sheltered from all that could go wrong. Teens learn from mistakes and will learn how to act the way they want to act from those mistakes and lessons learned.
One other thing about the book was that I don't think children should be involved with trying to make a stand for something, like how Greer took them to that demonstration. I have never been to a protest, but they seem very dangerous, and to bring a child to such a thing would be very irresponsable. If he wanted to take a stand, he could have done it with Jane or a friend who agrees. His children could have gotten hurt badly.
I believe this book was well written by the author and really showed how racism affected people. It was too bad that the children were even exposed to such a racist world that it made them afraid to go to school. It was also unfortunate that the children also became racist against whites because of what they heard, and saw.