{"product_id":"the-last-children-of-mill-creek","title":"The Last Children of Mill Creek","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA bestselling memoir of a vibrant childhood spent in a thriving St. Louis African American community before \"urban renewal\" changed everything.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as \"progress.\" A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Children of Mill Creek \u003c\/i\u003echronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson's large family―her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father―and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson's words, \"This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Children of Mill Creek\u003c\/i\u003e is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history―or for anyone who was once a child. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Last Children of Mill Creek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2022 Missouri Author of the Year Winner\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMissouri's \"Great Reads from Great Places\" Selection for the 2023 National Book Festival\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"This is a story borne aloft by the sheer human joy of storytelling, of memory, of tender love for a mother and a father and for a vanished time and place. It is a book that, while steadfastly refusing the American fiction of color blindness, just as steadfastly refuses to portray Black life through the single warped lens of white-induced pain.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Belt Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48174822817981,"sku":"BS-TC0-742641","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0771\/9767\/2637\/files\/9781948742641-HD.jpg?v=1787139736","url":"https:\/\/boundigo.com\/products\/the-last-children-of-mill-creek","provider":"Boundigo Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}