With Wings As Eagles — Patsy Baker O'Leary

In lyrical language and with deft characterization, Patsy Baker O'Leary explores the beauty and the ugliness of a small southern town in the 1930s as two young boys anxiously await their father's return from prison. Twelve-year-old Bubba longs to be with the person he has idolized; five-year-old Scooter wants to meet the father he has never known. But Jed's return is not as idyllic as the boys had hoped, for the father Bubba knew has changed. The breach widens as both boys are tormented, teased, and beaten at school because they are the sons of a "jailbird," and their father faces the community's ridicule for his friendship with Israel and Lily, African-American farmers in a town where the Ku Klux Klan spreads terror and death. Eventually the forces of racism and hatred, compassion and brotherhood, clash. In the resolution of these tensions, Bubba finally begins to reconcile himself to his father.