For Lamb

An interracial friendship between two teenaged girls goes tragically wrong in this powerful historical novel set in the Jim Crow South.

For Lamb follows a family striving to better their lives in the late 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. Lamb's mother is a hard-working, creative seamstress who cannot reveal she is a lesbian. Lamb's brother has a brilliant mind and has even earned a college scholarship for a black college up north-- if only he could curb his impulsiveness and rebellious nature.

Lamb herself is a quiet and studious girl. She is also naive. As she tentatively accepts the friendly overtures of a white girl who loans her a book she loves, she sets a off a calamitous series of events that pulls in her mother, charming hustler uncle, estranged father, and brother, and ends in a lynching.

Told with nuance and subtlety, avoiding sensationalism and unnecessary brutality, this young adult novel from celebrated author Lesa Cline-Ransome pays homage to the female victims of white supremacy.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 01/10/2023
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 8.53h x 5.85w x 1.06d
ISBN: 9780823450152
Age: Young Adult


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2022
Publishers Weekly 12/05/2022
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 01/01/2023
Booklist 01/01/2023 pg. 62
School Library Journal 02/17/2023 pg. 1
Horn Book Magazine 03/01/2023 pg. 65
BookPage 01/01/2023

About the Author
Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of more than twenty books for young readers including the award-winning Finding Langston trilogy. Her work has received a plethora of honors, including dozens of starred reviews, NAACP Image Award nominations, a Coretta Scott King honor, the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and a Christopher Award. Her work has been named to ALA Notable Books and Bank Street Best Children's Book lists and she lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York.