Burning Up by Caroline B. Cooney Essay - 804 Words

Title: Burning Up Main Characters: Macey Clare, Austin Fent, Mr. and Mrs. Macey, Monica and Henry Fent, Venita Edna, Grace, and Lindsay. Setting:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The story takes off on the first of April at Shell Beach. Where there are private beaches and swamps in the woods. Plot:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Macey Clare is a 15 year old girl who’s parents are never home so she stays with her grandparents on the weekdays, and on the weekends that her parents come home from work all week, she stays with them. Macey gets involved with a Saturday group, where they go and paint a church in a bad part of the neighborhood. While they paint at the black church, an arson walks by smoking, and†¦show more content†¦She finds out that the man presumed to have been burned alive was a black man, and he ended up getting out. No one that Macey asks remembers anything about the fire, so they say. They want to keep it secret because he was black and the fire was like arson. After digging into it more Macey is turned to believe that the person who started the fire lived on Shell Road. The only problem with this was that Macey’s grandparents and Austin’s grandparents are the only ones who live here. Now Macey is more determined to find out what happened. Everyone tries to get her to research something different for her history project but, because of the fire that burned her hair, she is stuck on it. Venita, who is also black, is shot during a gang fight. All this proves to Macey tha t no matter how hard her town tries to hide it they are very prejudice. Her family won’t let her go the funeral. Which upsets her greatly. Finally Macey gets Austin to help her find out how the fire started and who was all responsible. These two end up falling for eachother but don’t want to admit it. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Austin ends up leaving to go back to live with his mother and father. This breaks both of their hearts, although Austin is happy to go back home. Macey and Austin find out that it wasn’t either one of their grandparents who started the fire. Yet, they also learn that their grandparents weren’t the first to jump in and help the black teacher whose home had just burnt