Melvin the Mighty Takes the Stage

Levine Querido has bought Sundee T. Frazier's first historical middle grade novel, Melvin the Mighty Takes the Stage, inspired by her African-American family flouting restrictive covenants and integrating a white neighborhood in Spokane, Wash. In 1955, as the civil rights movement in the South “takes the stage” on a national level, 13-year-old Melvin Robinson, whose stutter has returned days before he begins high school, is becoming aware of the need for change in his Northwestern hometown. Publication is set for fall 2021.