JUMP INTO THE SKY

Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Levi Battle, who was abandoned by his mother as a baby and raised by his aunt, is sent to live with his father in North Carolina. His dad was a rarity during WWII, a black paratrooper. Narrator J.B. Adkins skillfully recounts how Levi's urban background and naïveté poorly prepare him for the Jim Crow South. Since his dad is no longer in North Carolina, Levi is befriended by a military couple, Calvin and Peaches. They make a home for him until he's reunited with his father. Adkins particularly shines as Calvin and Peaches, black Georgians who help the boy navigate the cruel and confusing South. Levi grows up, and along with him listeners learn about war, 1940s America, and how to jump from an airplane. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2012]