The Girl on the Outside, published twenty-five years after the 1957 events depicted, is a fictional but very apt story of the times in a southern town facing government-mandated integration of an all-white high school. I could feel the underlying terror in this understated book.: the thoughtless but not malicious selfishness of Sophia, as her eyes are opened even just a little bit to the injustice she has lived with her whole life; Eva who wants to experience and learn in a good school but is afraid - of violence, of not being smart enough, of losing her boyfriend. Eva's father who certainly had every reason to not allow his daughter this choice, but wanted her to decide for herself. So many currents going every which way...and which girl is it, anyway, who is "on the outside".? ( )