We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg is the story of Paige and Diana Dunn. It is the summer of 1954 in Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis Presley's birth, the civil rights tensions are mounting and demonstrations are increasing. Paige is trying to give Diana a normal life, which is difficult because Paige is inflected with polio and spends a great deal of her time in an iron lung. Diana is a typical teenager interested in making money for clothes and magazines, ignoring authority figures, trying to figure out boys, and to escape the small town life. Peacie is Paige's rough-talking black caregiver and the primary disciplinarian of the home.
As the summer passes, hate and more adversity will be showered on this struggling household. How each woman finds their way to independence , understanding and peace concludes our story.
This would be a great book to discuss in history or science class. The setting of the story in the 1950s during the polio outbreak in our country touches on the fears and phobias of a counrty that was scared. I vividly remember taking the vaccine for polio and how my family was so scared when my little sister, Linda, contracted polio. We didn't know if she would live or not. Interesting book and I recommend it.
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