Race/Racism

The theme of race and racism is threaded throughout the collection in several stories. Some are historical fiction and one is roughly contemporary, but all demonstrate America's long history of subjugating and oppressing black people. In the contemporary story that addresses this theme, “The Under Graham Railroad Box Car Set,” it is apparent that these issues do not lie only in the past and that we have not come so far as we might like to believe.

In this story, Leo Banskoff, a white toy collector, attempts to procure an extremely valuable Civil War-era model train from the African American couple that owns it, the Harts. Rev. and Mrs. Hart seem to want nothing to do with the train and Leo is perplexed by this. He cannot comprehend that not everyone shares his value system, and that perhaps a black person might be happy to...