When the twentieth century rolled around, all that investment in all them women finally started paying off. In 1917, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman to get elected to Congress, then in 1920, women got that right to vote they’d been after. And just in time, too, ’cause when the Great Depression hit and then World War II came around, women had the sense to help vote in FDR, and his powerful wife, Eleanor, into four terms as president.
The American Woman also proved, just like she had before, that she could take care of herself too. When menfolk was heading off to go fight the Nazis, the women of America stepped up and started filling in their spots on the assembly lines and in the factories. They built planes and weapons. Heck, the WASPs down in Texas flew them planes for the Air Force and some was even killed in action. They helped remind folks that being an American Woman was just as much about being an American as it was about being a woman. Maybe even more so.
See, the more and more you look at history, the more you realize that America probably wouldn’t be America if it wasn’t for the American Woman. In the fifties, when Senator McCarthy was going crazy and hunting all them Communists, it was Senator Margaret Smith that denounced him for being a nutjob. When it was getting more and more obvious that President Eisenhower wasn’t going to end segregation anytime soon, it was Ethel Payne, a black reporter from Chicago, who called him on it and asked when he was going to speak up. And when all that segregation on them buses was oppressing the black community here in the South, it was Rosa Parks who dared to sit at the front of the bus.
Now, it ain’t no lie that there’s still a ways to go. Women here in America can’t get jobs like fellas can, they can’t get into all the places men can, and Lord knows they don’t get treated like they match up on the same yardstick as the average man on the street. But it’ll be okay. They’ve come this far, and the American Woman will keep on going.
So, that’s the end. And I know that your first inclination is going to be that I don’t deserve a good grade on this paper, if I even deserve one at all. But you’re going to give me an A, and I’ll tell you why.
First off, you’re going to give it to me ’cause I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I wrote a biography on somebody that I could talk to, ’cause the American Woman is everywhere, and I get the privilege to talk to her anytime I speak to Mrs. Buttke, or Mrs. Parkins, or Mrs. Macker, back when she still lived here.
And I wrote a biography on someone that’s alive. ’Cause, even though she’s pushing three hundred years old, the American Woman is alive and kicking. And she looks to stay around for a really long time.
But here’s the honest-to-goodness biggest reason you’re going to give me an A: Ethan Pinckney has promised me that, if I say so, he’ll tell the whole town that you really did make me drink Jack Daniels down at the cemetery. I reminded him that liars go to hell, and so he said he’d like a clean conscience. He might even spill that you stuck your pasty white booty out the window at me, which won’t just get you fired, but might make it hard to get hired at any other school.
And if you’re wondering how I learned to blackmail so good, let’s just say I haven’t changed the last seventy-two of Tammy Jane’s diapers ’cause I wanted to. I’ve only got twenty-eight more to go before I can stop worrying about Sora spilling to Cari that I cried watching West Side Story.
American Women. They’re a dadgum force to be reckoned with.
ISAIAH CAMPBELL was born and bred in Texas, and spent his childhood reading a blend of Dickens, Dumas, and Stan Lee. He dreamed his whole life of becoming a writer. And also of being bitten by a radioactive spider. Unfortunately, only one dream has panned out. For fifteen years he taught and coached students in writing and the arts before he finally took his own advice and wrote The Troubles of Johnny Cannon. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, three children, and his sanity, although that may be moving out soon. He occasionally searches the classifieds for the bulk sale of spiders and uranium but hasn’t had any luck yet. Find him online at isaiahcampbell.com.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster · New York
Visit us at
simonandschuster.com/kids
authors.simonandschuster.com/Isaiah-Campbell
ALSO BY ISAIAH CAMPBELL
The Troubles of Johnny Cannon
WE HOPE YOU LOVED READING THIS EBOOK!
We have SO many more books for kids in the in-beTWEEN age that we’d love to share with you! Sign up for our IN THE MIDDLE books newsletter and you’ll receive news about other great books, exclusive excerpts, games, author interviews, and more!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com/middle
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Isaiah Campbell
Jacket illustration copyright © 2015 by Sam Bosma
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
The text for this book is set in Adobe Garamond.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Campbell, Isaiah.
The struggles of Johnny Cannon / Isaiah Campbell. — 1st edition.
pages cm
Sequel to: The troubles of Johnny Cannon.
Summary: In Alabama in the summer of 1961, twelve-year-old Johnny Cannon gets mixed up in a Mafia blood feud as he searches for his happy ending with Martha Macker.
ISBN 978-1-4814-2631-2 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4814-2633-6 (eBook)
[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Organized crime—Fiction. 3. Family life— Alabama—Fiction. 4. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 5. Alabama—History— 20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C15417Str 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014025239
The Struggles of Johnny Cannon Page 24