The Color of a Lie

In 1955, seventeen-year-old Calvin Green and his family leave Chicago for a new suburban town that does not welcome Black residents, and they settle there by passing as white. For Calvin, fitting in means hiding the music and culture he loves, including his trumpet, and keeping his distance from his older brother, Robert, who cannot pass and lives on the other side of town. When Calvin sees a new Black classmate mistreated, he begins using his position to push back, and the hidden history of the town starts to surface in ways that put his family at risk. Kim Johnson's historical thriller, set against redlining and white flight in postwar America, is written for teen readers and won the 2025 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.