Eclectic Book Club: The Year the Lights Came On

Colin Wynn is 11. The year is 1947, and in Colin's hometown of Emery, Georgia, Route 17 divides the community into the haves and the have-nots—those with and without electricity. This boundary creates a common bond among Colin and the other members of the Our Side Gang in their frequent confrontations with their affluent neighbors, the Highway 17 Gang. But then the Rural Electrification Administration brings electricity to the homes of the less privileged and Colin boasts that the wires will "knit us into the fabric of the huge glittering costume, Earth."