It took me a while to figure out how to read this e-book, I kept opening up the PDF on my computer and then closing it again. I eventually decided to print it out, double sided, four pages per side and broke out my reading glasses. :)
A young boy, Knot, picks up a bag of cash that a bank robber drops as the police close in. He's about to go back and live with his mom in a tiny shack, giving up his aunt's nice house where he's been for the summer as his mom dries out. He tries to make everyone's life better by handing out the found cash, but things don't turn out as planned.
It took a little while to get into the rhythm of the language used, and there were some words that took me a while to parse out, but I was soon engrossed in the story.

While I like the premise of the book, it has slight echoes of Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis—which I just recently read. Here are the positives: The author uses some great metaphors and some vibrant details (“cerise flowers” especially sticks out since I had to look up “cerise”). The idea of a young boy as a protagonist is interesting, especially one who is as selfless as Knot is.

My issues with this book are its predictability—we all could see that people would squander the money—and its style. I understand the author was trying to mimic the boy’s own personal style, but the intrusive dialect got in the way of comprehension. For a seamless blending of high and low style, consult Zora Neale Hurston. She integrated the dialect without losing any literary quality. While the idea of Knot being so selfless is intriguing, it saddens me to say I don’t think it’s very believable. In my experience, such selflessness doesn’t come until much older (we’re talking thirties, forties), if ever.

(Note: received the e-book through Early Reviewers) ( )

While I enjoyed the plot line, and was interested enough throughout the story, I found 'The Little Known' a difficult read.
This may have been due to situation and language - it was about as foreign to me as the Glaswegian tone of Irvine Welsh's books.

There were one or two plot devices I had trouble accepting. Knot sending off the money through the mail, for example. Would none of the recipients have realised that it was addressed in the handwriting of a child? To be honest, I never really understood the Marge/Knot thing either. I know he was her son, but what was all the mystery about?

I received this through the Early Reviewers program, and if nothing else I am pleased to have read it, as the book has opened my eyes to another culture in another time. I suppose the closest anything else I have read for this setting would be 'To Kill a Mockingbird', or 'Mississippi Burning' - both very different in plot to 'The Little Known', but set in the deep south of the USA. ( )

I received an e-book copy of this book through the Early Reviewers program.

This is set in a segregated South Georgia town in the 1960's. I thought that the plot device, having a young, poor, african-american boy find a bag of stolen money and decide how to use it to help others in his community, was creative. I liked the story itself, but I had a hard time getting into it. At times it felt choppy, other parts felt a little tedious, as if the story was not moving forward.

It took me a while to get into this story. Actually, I had read more than half the pages before it really gripped me. Then I finished the rest in one go.

This is a story about a poor black boy who finds a sack full of money from a bank robbery. He decides to take the money and give it to people who really need it. But things don't go the way he plans them. He gives 100 dollars to his mother so she can buy him a new bike, but she spends it all on alcohol. He gives 100 dollars to his neighbors to buy a wheelchair for their daughter, but they spend it on a bike for their son. Slowly but surely he finds out that having money does not make you a happy person. That even the rich white girl from his class has problems, much bigger ones than he has himself. And that all his big dreams (living with his family, owning a bike) aren't really that important. ( )