The year the colored sisters came to town

"Southwestern Louisiana, rural Cajun country, 1957. Vivien Leigh Dubois, a precocious and curious ten-year-old girl, and her family lead a modest and contented life filled with age-old traditions such as picking figs and making preserves. Their black housekeeper, Aussie Arceneaux, has been their faithful friend since Vivien Leigh's mother was a child, and her daughter Marydale and Vivien Leigh's seven-year-old sister Mavis are practically inseparable. But when the town of Ville d'Angelle is jolted by the arrival of two black nuns to teach at Holy Rosary, the all-white Catholic elementary school, Vivien Leigh and Mavis are exposed to an unwarranted hatred and fear that they never knew existed. Their father leads a "Concerned Citizens" group to protest and challenge the new teachers; even their mother begins to reject the lifelong friendship of the Arceneaux family. For the first time in her young life, Vivien Leigh is obliged to consider the color of people's skin and the impact of race on the very fabric of society, from the most intimate to the most public."--BOOK JACKET.