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Devil on My Heels
It’s 1959 in Benevolence, Florida, and life is as sweet as a Valencia orange for 15-year-old Dove Alderman. Whether she’s sipping cherry Cokes with her girlfriends and listening to the Everly Brothers, eating key lime pie made by her housekeeper, Delia, or cruising around town with the coolest boy in school in his silver-blue T-bird convertible, Dove’s days are as smooth and warm as the soft sand in her father’s orange groves.
But there’s trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Mysterious fires have broken out, and rumors are spreading that disgruntled pickers are to blame. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air like sighs. The Klan could never exist in a place like Benevolence, Dove tells herself. Or could it?
But there’s trouble brewing among the local migrant workers. Mysterious fires have broken out, and rumors are spreading that disgruntled pickers are to blame. Suddenly, black and white become a muddy shade of gray, and whispers of the KKK drift through the Southern air like sighs. The Klan could never exist in a place like Benevolence, Dove tells herself. Or could it?
272 pages, Hardcover
First published May 11, 2004
16 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Joyce McDonald
15 books18 followersThere is more than one author with this name
Born in San Francisco, CA, and raised in Chatham, NJ, Joyce McDonald received her BA and MA from the University of Iowa, and went on to complete her Ph.D. at Drew University. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the award winning Swallowing Stones, and the Edgar Award Nominated Shades of Simon Gray. She has taught at East Stroudsburg University in PA, Drew University in NJ, and is currently on the faculty of Spaulding University's Brief-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY. For over ten years, Joyce has served on the Rutgers Unversity Council on Children's Literature. She and her husband live in Forks Township, PA.
Born in San Francisco, CA, and raised in Chatham, NJ, Joyce McDonald received her BA and MA from the University of Iowa, and went on to complete her Ph.D. at Drew University. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the award winning Swallowing Stones, and the Edgar Award Nominated Shades of Simon Gray. She has taught at East Stroudsburg University in PA, Drew University in NJ, and is currently on the faculty of Spaulding University's Brief-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY. For over ten years, Joyce has served on the Rutgers Unversity Council on Children's Literature. She and her husband live in Forks Township, PA.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
July 25, 2024
This book is a cute and short read. The only reason this is not rated higher is because it’s just another run of the mill “white girl discovers racism is bad” book. This book really didn’t dive deeper than surface level on the topics of racism, segregation, and the klan during the 60’s and it was told through a rich white teenage girls perspective. It’s a short and sweet historical fiction read, but nothing mind blowing or super insightful.
July 12, 2010
This book was fabulous! A real page turner, and a real position that people go through; knowing who to trust. I really sympathized with the characters in this book, and I enjoyed the easy read!
Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald (this review was my February 2010 book report, I got an A!)
Dove Alderman is a regular fifteen-year old girl in the late 1950’s in Florida, the daughter of a successful orange groves owner. Just as her sophomore year of school is finally turning around, having the coolest senior in school pay attention to her and the best grades she’s ever gotten, fires start up in the groves and her father is whom people are blaming. Dove, totally unbelieving that her quiet, kept-together business man could be responsible for damage to anyone or anything, starts to inspect the fires being spread through town orchards. As she does so, Dove starts to rekindle her relationship with a black childhood pal, finally knows what the guy of her dreams thinks of her, and ends a friendship she’d thought would last forever. Dove finally starts to understand only certain people are worth her time and trust, and begins think about what it’s like living on the other side of the tracks, what it’s like to be a black worker, and how horrible it is to have nobody on your side. As she examines every bit of information she’s found out, about the inequality the black workers have to go through, a lot of things don’t add up. And when Dove finally finds the answer to all her questions, and is too afraid to run from the ones she thought loved her, she finally accepts that nobody’s as they seem.
1) Why did Dove care so much when she found out Chase Tully, her boyfriend, was apart of KKK (Ku Klux Klan), a group that was against black people? I wonder this because Dove had seemed as if she didn’t care about black people when they got treated badly at her father’s grove, but when she discovered Chase was a apart of something that ruined lives, and the life of an old friend they’d both shared, she had completely turned around. I think Dove cared that Chase was apart of something so horrible because as she started to ask questions about the fires, and as she finally had started to understand the racism going on in her own home, I think she started to realize that blacks were people too, and that treating them the way her friends and family did was wrong. I infer that she also was affected so much because Chase was someone she loved, and I don’t think she believed that he could do something wrong. In other books or movies I’ve seen, people aren’t able to see the flaws of the friends, families or significant others because their love for them blocks them from understanding that nobody is perfect.
2) Why didn’t Dove’s father rat out the KKK members when he knew they were doing something illegal? I wonder this because when Dove accused him for joining something so “morally wrong and so horribly inhuman”, he said that his friend had forced him to only sign his name in paper proving that he had been to a meeting, even if he wasn’t going to act as a club member. This made me think about why he didn’t just tell the police if he believed it was wrong like he told Dove he did. I don’t think he told the authorities because he and his friends had such a deep bond from childhood that he couldn’t bear to break it, but if he thought it was wrong, I think he should’ve acted on it, like Dove did by in the end, finally putting a stop to the racism in her town.
I highly recommend that you read this fantastic addition to historical novels. Miss McDonald wrote in the truest sense of a fifteen-year old girl, and the references to past pop culture. I really loved the anti-racism this book promoted, and it brought a new understanding along with the well written plots and characters, of the unequal treatments people of colored descendant experienced and
The characters were deep and changed throughout the novel, and for that I was grateful. Dove seemed so innocent in the beginning, and she changed into someone worth admiring. Chase Tully, that really cool older guy who she's known her entire life, really started teaching Dove the lessons of life - sometimes there are things you need to keep to yourself, and sometimes there are things you need to take a
This should be high on your to-read list, and I want to hear all about it when you guys have read it! I have a final question for you, that relates back to the novel: Do you ever feel yourself still connected and sympathetic of a childhood friend you've lost touch with? Do you ever have regrets, or hopes in their regards?
Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald (this review was my February 2010 book report, I got an A!)
Dove Alderman is a regular fifteen-year old girl in the late 1950’s in Florida, the daughter of a successful orange groves owner. Just as her sophomore year of school is finally turning around, having the coolest senior in school pay attention to her and the best grades she’s ever gotten, fires start up in the groves and her father is whom people are blaming. Dove, totally unbelieving that her quiet, kept-together business man could be responsible for damage to anyone or anything, starts to inspect the fires being spread through town orchards. As she does so, Dove starts to rekindle her relationship with a black childhood pal, finally knows what the guy of her dreams thinks of her, and ends a friendship she’d thought would last forever. Dove finally starts to understand only certain people are worth her time and trust, and begins think about what it’s like living on the other side of the tracks, what it’s like to be a black worker, and how horrible it is to have nobody on your side. As she examines every bit of information she’s found out, about the inequality the black workers have to go through, a lot of things don’t add up. And when Dove finally finds the answer to all her questions, and is too afraid to run from the ones she thought loved her, she finally accepts that nobody’s as they seem.
1) Why did Dove care so much when she found out Chase Tully, her boyfriend, was apart of KKK (Ku Klux Klan), a group that was against black people? I wonder this because Dove had seemed as if she didn’t care about black people when they got treated badly at her father’s grove, but when she discovered Chase was a apart of something that ruined lives, and the life of an old friend they’d both shared, she had completely turned around. I think Dove cared that Chase was apart of something so horrible because as she started to ask questions about the fires, and as she finally had started to understand the racism going on in her own home, I think she started to realize that blacks were people too, and that treating them the way her friends and family did was wrong. I infer that she also was affected so much because Chase was someone she loved, and I don’t think she believed that he could do something wrong. In other books or movies I’ve seen, people aren’t able to see the flaws of the friends, families or significant others because their love for them blocks them from understanding that nobody is perfect.
2) Why didn’t Dove’s father rat out the KKK members when he knew they were doing something illegal? I wonder this because when Dove accused him for joining something so “morally wrong and so horribly inhuman”, he said that his friend had forced him to only sign his name in paper proving that he had been to a meeting, even if he wasn’t going to act as a club member. This made me think about why he didn’t just tell the police if he believed it was wrong like he told Dove he did. I don’t think he told the authorities because he and his friends had such a deep bond from childhood that he couldn’t bear to break it, but if he thought it was wrong, I think he should’ve acted on it, like Dove did by in the end, finally putting a stop to the racism in her town.
I highly recommend that you read this fantastic addition to historical novels. Miss McDonald wrote in the truest sense of a fifteen-year old girl, and the references to past pop culture. I really loved the anti-racism this book promoted, and it brought a new understanding along with the well written plots and characters, of the unequal treatments people of colored descendant experienced and
The characters were deep and changed throughout the novel, and for that I was grateful. Dove seemed so innocent in the beginning, and she changed into someone worth admiring. Chase Tully, that really cool older guy who she's known her entire life, really started teaching Dove the lessons of life - sometimes there are things you need to keep to yourself, and sometimes there are things you need to take a
This should be high on your to-read list, and I want to hear all about it when you guys have read it! I have a final question for you, that relates back to the novel: Do you ever feel yourself still connected and sympathetic of a childhood friend you've lost touch with? Do you ever have regrets, or hopes in their regards?
February 3, 2016
This story takes place either in the late fifties or early sixties in Florida. The main characters are Dove, a 15-year-old girl whose father owns an orange grove; Gator, a young black male who picks oranges; Chase, the object of Dove's attentions; Travis, the crew boss for the pickers, and Delia, the household maid, also black.
Migrant workers do the picking of the oranges. Dove and Gator sort of become friends, but Dove realizes that such a friendship between a white girl and a black male is definitely frowned upon, and she stands by when Gator gets beaten up by a couple of white punks.
The story gets much more complex, though, as it involves the lives of the migrant workers and how they are basically cheated by Travis and his “company store” that sells goods to the workers. The workers are unhappy, but a group stands ready and vigilant to stop their uprising – the KKK.
A lightning strike on the barn belonging to Dove's father gets interpreted as the barn being set fire to by someone, even though Dove herself saw the lightning hit the barn and said so over and over. A clothesline filled with clothes in the migrant camp gets set on fire, and pressure builds against the workers until a direct confrontation with the KKK is inevitable. Worse yet, Dove finds out someone close to her is actually a member of the KKK, and she suspects another person close to her is also in the group.
This is a really, really good young adult novel. It's realistic, gritty, and deals with a variety of issues at the same time, including the KKK, prejudice against blacks, and prejudice against migrant workers. This is one of the best young adult novels I have read in a while.
Migrant workers do the picking of the oranges. Dove and Gator sort of become friends, but Dove realizes that such a friendship between a white girl and a black male is definitely frowned upon, and she stands by when Gator gets beaten up by a couple of white punks.
The story gets much more complex, though, as it involves the lives of the migrant workers and how they are basically cheated by Travis and his “company store” that sells goods to the workers. The workers are unhappy, but a group stands ready and vigilant to stop their uprising – the KKK.
A lightning strike on the barn belonging to Dove's father gets interpreted as the barn being set fire to by someone, even though Dove herself saw the lightning hit the barn and said so over and over. A clothesline filled with clothes in the migrant camp gets set on fire, and pressure builds against the workers until a direct confrontation with the KKK is inevitable. Worse yet, Dove finds out someone close to her is actually a member of the KKK, and she suspects another person close to her is also in the group.
This is a really, really good young adult novel. It's realistic, gritty, and deals with a variety of issues at the same time, including the KKK, prejudice against blacks, and prejudice against migrant workers. This is one of the best young adult novels I have read in a while.
July 26, 2022
This book has some slow parts, but it still keeps you on the edge of your seat with many unexpected events that unfold.
March 10, 2023
“Lately I have taken to reading poems to dead boys in the Benevolence Baptist Cemetery.” This first sentence of Joyce McDonald’s novel Devil on My Heels grabs the reader’s imagination and drags them into a story filled with mystery, fear, terror, heartbreak, and romance. Dove Alderman’s life is one of privilege and relative ease in 1959, in the small town of Benevolence, Florida. Her father, like many others in the region, owns an orange orchard that hosts migrant laborers to pick the crops gently and quickly each season to avoid fruit spoiling on the trees. From her earliest memories, Dove has been surrounded by these hardworking people and even played with some of the younger children in the groves until the age of seven when the ugly societal norms of the time force her and a neighboring orange grower’s son to stop playing with Gator only because he is black. Dove hates this division in her life, but has neither the power nor the understanding of how to fight against it until she is is faced with an even uglier truth and must choose to do the right thing or turn a blind eye. When doing the right thing turns her quiet and calm life upside down, she finds herself in a fight for not only her life but the life of two of her childhood friends. Told in first person through the voice of Dove, Devil on My Heels exposes the ugly reality of racism in this small town in 1959. The danger is palpable; the terror is real; the brutality of men blinded by hate is sickening, but the courage of two young girls to defy conventions, stand up for the truth and fight back against racism brings hope that justice can prevail. I could not turn the pages fast enough. Once Dove is forced to face the truth about her father and the awful events that are hurting those she cares about, the story is an all out action packed, fast paced adrenaline rush. I highly recommend this YA novel. Reader’s need to be aware that the some of the language is raw and jarring. The n-word is used in a realistic context to show the ugliness that racism and hate often bring out in people. This book receives a 5-star rating from me.
June 2, 2018
This is an excellent book aimed at a young adult audience. The main character is Dove Alderman, a 15-year-old white girl whose father owns a citrus grove in Florida. The migrant pickers are mostly black or Hispanic. Dove increasingly becomes aware that things in her small town of Benevolence are not so benevolent. When it becomes clear that the KKK is on the rise in the groves, Dove does not any longer know who she can trust.
August 24, 2024
Phenomenal read. Means a lot and as a person new to the south, really expanded my consideration of themes that I don't normally consider and what they mean in a modern setting. Just a good book overall. Would highly recommend.
December 11, 2018
this book is very lovely
October 14, 2019
Too much of the white perspective on racism. Yet another book about a white person realizing racism is bad. A book for white people, not people of color
September 4, 2017
Definitely an easy read, but, while trying to think of its significance, especially in today's world, it's a little harder to pin down. It certainly helps that it's more of a teen book, if even that; a quick read for an adult, but then one wonders if the lack of complexity is to accommodate that, or if the author was just trying to weave a simple narrative, as compared to much more adult and complex novels concerning racism, like Lee's oft cited Mockingbird. The latter felt like there was much more going on below the surface as opposed to this one.
The story being told by a young girl, Dove, makes for some interesting features. It's easy to see her transition, from just towing the line as everyone else in town does to becoming a "negro-lover" herself, but, at the same time, her transition is slow enough to incite anger in most modern people's hearts, I would think. While she's positively progressive compared to her classmates, and especially most of the older generation, it's hard not to resent her, even if just a tad, when she stands by and allows these injustices to happen, or even justifies or reveals fearful support for the system in her head. It'd be interested to gaze into the heads of her peers as well.
The clan was characterized somewhat optimistically, at least I think. As a group who was primarily lead by a few truly ghastly men, with most of the others being led by their fear mongering and mob mentality, it didn't absolve them of their evil, but there's more hope for them to change their ways than the Travis's of the novel.
The romance was OK. At times it seemed like fluff, but felt that it was really building up to Chase's reveal as a Klan member, then as a double agent. It seemed that the second reveal, and, in part, the first, was more to be a twist than anything else though. Dove's preliminary interest in him as mostly a means to gain information about the colored world does make it seem less than genuine in the beginning as well.
All in all, simple, but extremely effective. It's easy to look at Dove and criticize her for her inaction and compliance in the system early on, but I think the main application for myself is to remember the power of traditional and social pressures even today, and remember to be a force for moving towards what the new good is, for all people.
The story being told by a young girl, Dove, makes for some interesting features. It's easy to see her transition, from just towing the line as everyone else in town does to becoming a "negro-lover" herself, but, at the same time, her transition is slow enough to incite anger in most modern people's hearts, I would think. While she's positively progressive compared to her classmates, and especially most of the older generation, it's hard not to resent her, even if just a tad, when she stands by and allows these injustices to happen, or even justifies or reveals fearful support for the system in her head. It'd be interested to gaze into the heads of her peers as well.
The clan was characterized somewhat optimistically, at least I think. As a group who was primarily lead by a few truly ghastly men, with most of the others being led by their fear mongering and mob mentality, it didn't absolve them of their evil, but there's more hope for them to change their ways than the Travis's of the novel.
The romance was OK. At times it seemed like fluff, but felt that it was really building up to Chase's reveal as a Klan member, then as a double agent. It seemed that the second reveal, and, in part, the first, was more to be a twist than anything else though. Dove's preliminary interest in him as mostly a means to gain information about the colored world does make it seem less than genuine in the beginning as well.
All in all, simple, but extremely effective. It's easy to look at Dove and criticize her for her inaction and compliance in the system early on, but I think the main application for myself is to remember the power of traditional and social pressures even today, and remember to be a force for moving towards what the new good is, for all people.
December 19, 2023
A good read, and kept my interest long enough to finish it, although it may have been a little predictable and not completely credible at times.
November 13, 2015
The novel Devil on My Heels by Joyce McDonald is a personal story of Dove, a white teenage girl, whose world gets flipped upside down as the KKK threatens the safety of her hometown. McDonald’s use of southern charm and syntax within her writing not only makes you empathetic for Dove and her friend Gator, a black picker in her family’s groves, but it builds excitement and makes her readers eager to find out what happens to Gator and Dove. Page after page readers are filled with sarcasm and “Omigosh!” moments that has readers wanting more (112). With new events and discoveries around every corner, McDonald has everyone on the edge of their seats. Although I have yet to finish the novel, Dove is a very relatable character whom is trustworthy and terrified of the KKK threat in her hometown, Benevolence, Florida. The growing threat has everyone feeling uneasy as young Billy Tyler, Dove’s not-so-friendly friend, has a picture of a black man that was hanged, it’s odd due to the fact of a “white robe and hood” show in the background of the photo (112). This photo in the hands of a young child is concerning to many as the KKK is everywhere and the people who want to change things can’t, because of a lack of power. The novel by Joyce McDonald is touching and a page turning according to her readers and the School Library Journal.
November 20, 2010
Devil on my Heels.....*sigh*. An Amazing book.
Dove, who lives in Benevolence, Florida in the 1960's, loves her life. She has tons of friends and hangs out with a guy who she thinks is awesome and may or may not be her boyfriend. But when several fires break out, rumors think that the African American pickers are to blame. Lots of discrimination between blacks and whites is starting. Fights and rumors are starting between the two forces. But Dove, being white, is also friends with some other pickers. And some of the clues are leading up to one answer- The Ku Klux Klan.
For those of you who don't know, the Ku Klux Klan is a group of people who want to completly demolish the African American race.
The writing is just...amazing. I really like historical fiction, but only really good authors can make historical fiction exciting. Joyce McDonald definetly did that for me.
THe desputes between the characters really kept me reading. I stayed up too late reading it a few nights.
I would reccomend to anyone, and I hope they will enjoy it as much as I did.
Dove, who lives in Benevolence, Florida in the 1960's, loves her life. She has tons of friends and hangs out with a guy who she thinks is awesome and may or may not be her boyfriend. But when several fires break out, rumors think that the African American pickers are to blame. Lots of discrimination between blacks and whites is starting. Fights and rumors are starting between the two forces. But Dove, being white, is also friends with some other pickers. And some of the clues are leading up to one answer- The Ku Klux Klan.
For those of you who don't know, the Ku Klux Klan is a group of people who want to completly demolish the African American race.
The writing is just...amazing. I really like historical fiction, but only really good authors can make historical fiction exciting. Joyce McDonald definetly did that for me.
THe desputes between the characters really kept me reading. I stayed up too late reading it a few nights.
I would reccomend to anyone, and I hope they will enjoy it as much as I did.
May 3, 2012
I really enjoyed Devil on My Heels. It is about a teenage white girl named Dove dealing with the segregation in Florida. She is a normal teenager and has her romance with her old best friend Chase. Her father owns orange groves and has slaves.They also have a house keeper because Dove's mother died when she was very little. Things seem to be going great, she has great friends and she has something with Chase, but fires start to break out and there are rumors of the slaves string the fires to rebel. Dove is scared and wants to help. SHe risks all her relationships and promises to find out exactly what is happening with her dad's slaves and the other slaves. Devil on My Heels was a great book and a little bit of a page turner. I would recommend this book to anyone who's looking for a good read!
August 3, 2014
Dove is 15 years old, living with her grove-owner dad in Benevolence, Florida, around 1960. She cares about fashion, poetry, and school. She also thinks about her old friend, Gator, one of her dad's "pickers," and how stupid it is that she can't hang out with him anymore, because he's black and she's white. But she doesn't go much further than that until the day that a couple white bullies beat up Gator on the town's sidewalks because Gator has been talking with a white girl.
Events born of long-festering injustices tumble fast then, with Dove making the choices that we all hope we would make as well.
McDonald does a great job of showing how how Jim Crow and the KKK worked in the South. Recommended.
Events born of long-festering injustices tumble fast then, with Dove making the choices that we all hope we would make as well.
McDonald does a great job of showing how how Jim Crow and the KKK worked in the South. Recommended.
January 2, 2008
I absolutely loved this book!!! It is amazing and a definite page turner!!! I couldn't put the book down!! THe description are so real an so vivid that it feels like you're right there watching the whole thing happening. I loved this book!! The characters seem so real. This book and the story is amazing. I wasn't disappointed when I finished the book either.
February 12, 2010
The setting is 1959, central Florida. Dove is a teenager, and her life has become quite complicated. She is good friends with a young black man, and that is not a good thing, because the KKK is a force to be reckoned with in her town. Lots of tension, drama and suspense in this page-turner, as she deals with suspicions about her own father. Is he a member of the dispicable KKK, too?
July 4, 2010
Interesting historical fiction set in Florida orange groves and illustrating the battle between migrant workers and grove farmers. Dove, the 15-year-old narrator, shines as the innocent child just beginning to understand what her easy life is like balanced against grove workers she considers friends.
April 20, 2011
While I normally read paranormal YA fiction, Joyce McDonald tells a compelling story in Devil on My Heels. I read this book in a single night and still think of it from time to time. Dove and Gator are both fascinating characters I came to care about early-on in the story, and it was a pure delight to follow them on their journey.
January 15, 2013
Devil on My Heels is an incredible book. Joyce McDonald deals with race and class issues in a sensitive but realistic manner. Dove Alderman is the privileged daughter of a successful orange grove owner who has few worries. When tensions rise between the grove workers and the locals Dove works to discover the truth.
July 7, 2012
An interesting take on being a teenager in the late 50's with such a close tie to racism. Really good.
May 30, 2013
3 and a half. A pretty slow story but rewarding.
August 15, 2016
Really engaging and super vivid. I was watching a movie I wasn't really reading. It's a short sweet and an impactful book that I really enjoyed.
April 6, 2008
Interesting book about race and choices.
April 19, 2014
This book was a treat!
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews