Jesus Land: A Memoir
Publisher
Counterpoint
Publication Year
2012
ISBN
9781619020658
Pages
384 pages
Genre
memoir
Format
full length
Item Type
Nonfiction
Annotation
It's the mid-1980s. Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David are sixteen years old and have just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees and trailer parks, and a racism neither of them is prepared for. While Julia is white, her close relationship with David, who is black, makes them both outcasts. At home, a distant mother, more involved with her church's missionaries than with her own children, and a violent father only compound their problems. When high-school hormones, bullying, and a deep-seated restlessness prove too much to bear, they are packed off to a Christian boot camp in the Dominican Republic. Surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe is governed by a disciplinary regime that demands its teens repent for their sins, which few of them are aware they've committed. How they made it through with heart and soul intact is told here with candor and humor.
Grade Level
6-8; 9-12
Diversity Topics
Family Relationships; Racial Diversity; Adoption; Family violence; Race discrimination; adopted child; abusive father; racism
Main Character
girl
Race/Ethnicities
African American / White
Family Formation
mother and father
Awards
Public Library Catalog, Supplement to the 12th Edition, 2006
Senior High Core Collection, Seventeenth Edition, 2007
Senior High School Library Catalog, Sixteenth Edition, 2006 Supplement, 2006
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award, 2007-2008
Nominee
Awards, 2006, Winner
Keywords
Christian youth; church; Indiana; Dominican Republic; reform school
Diversity Impact
direct
STARS Citation
Scheeres, Julia, "Jesus Land: A Memoir" (2012). Diverse Families. 1027.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/1027