What a great book! My only regret is that I have only discovered Tayari Jones recently (thanks to Anne Bogel), and now plan to read all her novels.
This book, set in Atlanta during the child murders,(1979- 1981) explores the effects of these tragic events on the children who lived in the area where the abductions were taking place. I remember the news coverage was horrific and can only imagine how the parents of young children must have feared for their children. Tayari Jones gives voice to the children...so often voiceless but in this novel given authentic feelings and fears.
Tayari Jones puts herself in the novel as a peripheral character, hovering on the outskirts of the story, but mentioned quite a few times... ("someone ought to watch that girl!") in the background, watching the action and obviously taking note.
Each part of the story is narrated by a different child, and each has a heartache that is made more heightened by the surrounding fear and grief.
As one of the students (Octavia) says, " I cried because it seemed like everything good in the world was locked in a box, like a backward Pandora."(p. 253). The box was the coffin of one of the murdered children. ( )

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones is a 2002 publication.

This is a story centered three children who were living in Atlanta during the time a killer of young black people was terrorizing the city. The effect those years had on the children living in seventies and early eighties is seen through the eyes of LaTasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison.

While the children still think of life through the innocent lens of their age, they must grow up a little faster, now. They must put on a protective shield, be hyperaware of their surroundings and the people in their orbit. They are not immune to their parent’s fear, anger and frustration or the way the murders has divided the city.

Each child has a segment of the book devoted to their personal story- told via different forms of narrative writing- third, second and first. The three signets are not necessarily created equally, and I struggled a bit with Rodney’s story for various reasons and felt Octavia’s story lost some of the story’s momentum- until near the end when the atmosphere suddenly grew very tense, indeed.

For anyone reading the premise and drawing the conclusion that the book might delve into the murder investigations, the arrest of a suspect, or a trial- you will be in for a surprise. This book was focused completely on the three children, showing that while the city was gripped in fear, the children living during that atmosphere were resilient and ultimately the power of the human spirit shines through.

I think, based on the author’s introduction explaining why she felt compelled to write this story, that I understood the message she was trying to convey. The story is well-written and while it does explore the various tensions and emotions that were at a fevered pitch, it was also a story that touched on family, friendship, and hope, which is what I think the author would want us to take away from this novel.

This is Tayri Jones’ first novel, and she did a wonderful job with it. I’ve read a few of her later releases which is how she popped up on my radar. I was curious about her other work but was slow to get around to reading anything in her backlist, but I’m glad I found the time to slip this one into my reading schedule.

3.5 rounded up ( )

How did I miss this? This is a novelization of the Atlanta child murders of the early 1980s and the impact on a group of neighborhood children and their petrified parents. The POV is all from the kids: LaTasha, stymied by Mean Girl syndrome in her class, befriends Jashante; Roger, also shunned at school, goes missing after befriending Sweet Pea, a girl called "Watusi" by her cruel classmates due to her dark color. Really, it's much more about how routine home life can get upended by lurking terror. Beautifully written, and worthy of a film in the skilled hands of Ava Duvernay or someone of her stature and class, and her gender and ethnicity. I would categorize it as a must read for all lovers of literary fiction, and especially for white people, who can read and learn. ( )

Jones's prose is always so easy to swallow. My biggest problem, however, was the repetition of key characterizations rendered in the observational focuses of the young main characters. Often, the two girls saw things much too similarly when they otherwise experienced the world through very different lenses.
I also have to add that I felt much closer to the first focal character, Tasha, than I did to the others. Because of the view point shift between the sections, I found myself losing interest, as there was not enough of an overlap with the characters the author had already convinced me to love. ( )

It’s funny the things one thinks about in the early morning. After a 2 am feeding, I lay in bed trying to find my way back into dreamland (it’s usually difficult, as once I’m up, I’m up). And I was thinking about the last book I finished, Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones, and how it’s taken me quite a while to sit down and write about it. Because it deserves to be written about. I eventually drifted off to sleep (only to be woken by the wee reader’s grunts around 630 as he stirred but didn’t quite wake until an hour later), but felt that today ought to be the day that I write about this book. And so, here it is.

The stories of three fifth-graders who attend Oglethorpe Elementary are tied to the nightmare of 1979 in Atlanta, when African-American children began vanishing and turning up dead. Tasha is desperately trying to fit in with her classmates (one day she’s buds, the next day, she’s not invited to their sleepover… kids!). Rodney just doesn’t seem to be able to fit in anywhere – at home or at school, but he begins to be friendly with Octavia, the final narrator. The kids tease Octavia for being poor and for the colour of her skin (they call her “Watusi”) but she’s a tough kid and like Rodney, a loner.

Jones has crafted some wonderful characters. The stories of these three children – though schoolmates, they are from different walks of life – weave together issues of class, race, and of trying to fit in at school, as the cloud of fear hangs over the neighbourhood. It is not so much about a plot as it is a delving into their lives, their perceptions of the disappearances, their relationships with their parents and siblings and their classmates. Their fears and troubles are all too real, and I’m not just talking about the possibility of being abducted and murdered. But of those awkward years trying to fit in at school, which Jones so convincingly portrays, and which everyone can easily relate to. I didn’t expect this book to move me the way it did, I didn’t expect that three stories from the perspectives of three children could tell me so much about the way life works. Don’t you just love it when a book overthrows all your expectations? ( )