In the book “Fire From The Rock”, the protagonist Sylvia Patterson is a teenaged girl facing normal teenage problems from fitting in with her class to getting a boy to like him. She lives with an older brother, younger sister, and two working parents. Sylvia’s brother Gary is involved in fighting against racial discrimination, but Sylvia fears that his violent ways could lead to trouble. Sylvia’s father is a minister at their local church and is optimistic about the change that groups of people are trying to force. Another critical character is Sylvia’s boyfriend Reggie. There are many good things about him, but Sylvia worries for him because he is following in Gary’s footsteps. The main struggle Sylvia faces is trying to discover who she is and if she is the right person for the tasks that her peers provide for her. The theme focuses on courage and how people respond to change.

     In the book there were two multicultural elements the author focused on. The first element the author focused on the most was race. The setting takes place in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1960’s. In the time when the book is set there are many fights caused because of race and it really adds suspense to the story whenever a black person comes across a white person. The main thing I learned regarding race and racial discrimination is that there were also a lot of African Americans who did not want to change their society to create equality between both races. The second element is religion. It was not used often, but there are multiple examples in the book when the protagonist points out that no matter what your race is, other religions besides Christianity were frowned upon.

     I really enjoyed reading this book for a couple of reasons. First of all, the suspense of not knowing what is going to happen kept me on the edge of my seat. Another reason I liked the book is because I liked being in the mind of an individual very different from me. It was fascinating how different the problems me and Sylvia face in our daily lives. I would recommend this book to a variety of people. The first kind of person I would like to recommend this book to is someone who is willing to reach out of their comfort zone and wants to try to learn about the normal life of someone different to you. Another group of people I would recommend this book to are people that enjoy historical fiction. I found this book intriguing in because it uses some fictional characters in actual real life events.