‘TJ Crowley' Goes to College: Novel Picked for History Course at Wichita State University

Jay M. Price, Ph.D., Department Chair and Head of the Local and Community History Program at Wichita State University, selected The Real Education of TJ Crowley as supplemental reading for his History of Wichita course.

To learn historical facts about Wichita, Kansas, students in Dr. Jay M. Price's class will be turning to a work of historical fiction as the spring semester begins this month at Wichita State University.

Aimed at juniors, seniors and graduate students, Dr. Price's three-hour "History of Wichita" course reviews Wichita from 1865-present, "emphasizing the lessons of local history and its importance to an individual citizen's sense of place."

As Department Chair and Head of the Local and Community History Program, Dr. Price selected The Real Education of TJ Crowley as supplemental reading for the course. The young adult historical novel, written by Wichita native Grant Overstake, is set in the shadow of the college's main campus in 1968-69.

"In local history, it’s not uncommon for the best, most insightful works to be those of fiction, because it gives you the sense of tone, and connection, and identity, and place," Price said, adding that the novel meets all of the criteria.

The novel portrays a young white teen's coming-of-age at a time when America was at a historic crossroads and Wichita was one of the most racially volatile and segregated cities in the nation. Through his friendships with black classmates and neighbors, the 7th grade hero, TJ Crowley, learns to confront the racism he was raised to espouse at home.

Dr. Price himself introduced the new novel and the author at the book's publishing debut and author signing at Watermark Books and Cafe in late 2018, where the book became a local best-seller. The novel was selected this past summer for the citywide Candid Conversations Book Club by the Wichita Public Library, and last fall was named "Book of the Year for 2019" by the Kansas Authors Club.

According to Dr. Price, "Wichita was a significant place for a lot of different cultural movements, both the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam conflict, both the Beat movement and the John Birch Society, and it comes together in a work like this.

"This book continues that conversation and expands on it in a couple of different ways," Price added. "This is one of those works that will resonate with Wichita. It builds on the shoulders of so much scholarship. It should be an entry into a discussion, a starting point to a discussion."

Of all the accolades to date, Overstake says, "To have my book selected for Dr. Price's history class is a great honor. He's invited me to talk to the students and I look forward to speaking to them about the research that went into writing the story."

Educator Guide for TJ Crowley

A team of experts has created an outstanding Educator Guide for teaching The Real Education of TJ Crowley. The guide, available by following this link, is a free resource for English, Social Studies, and History teachers, college professors, and book club facilitators. The downloadable .pdf file contains links, resources, questions and answers to introduce the novel to readers aged 12 to adult.The guide also helps teachers facilitate difficult classroom discussions about bias, prejudice and the language of racism, which are the central themes of the book. It provides literary perspectives of the novel and links to resources on the Civil Rights movement, the role of law enforcement, and cultural issues such as the Hippy counterculture and the Vietnam War.