The core of Come a Stranger revolves around Mina Smiths, a black girl who grows before the reader's eyes from an amusing, energetic ten-year-old who is "t-rou-ble," into a strong-spirited young woman of fifteen who has a healthy sense of her own person. It is Mina's changing view of the world and her place in it that is the theme of this story. At ten Mina is little aware of life outside her neighborhood. She feels secure in her family, absorbed in her dancing, and untouched by prejudice or rejection. Black history and slavery seem far removed to Mina, and her papa's sermon on Jonah's fear of strangers in far-off lands is less entertaining than thinking about ballet camp. But in her second summer at the dance camp for gifted students, Mina begins to understand her father's concern. Midway through camp she is asked...