In 1957--the year in which school integration stirred both Blacks and whites--in St. Louis, thirteen-year-old Betsey Brown encounters the awkwardness, responsibilities, and the elusive promise of romance of adolescence.

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo is the story of three colored girls, three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina: Sassafrass, the eldes, a poet and a weaver liker her mother, gone north to college, living in L.A. and try...