Pip Cooper, a sharp-witted teen with a flair for mischief, is sent to a strict, religious boarding school in a last-ditch effort to tame his unruly spirit. But Pip doesn't shrink-he schemes. What begins as a string of clever pranks soon collides with the violent machinery of a segregated state on the edge of change. As civil rights leaders challenge the status quo outside the school walls, Pip finds himself on a collision course with the very forces shaping Alabama's future. His rebellion, reckless at first, takes on a deeper urgency--drawing
in unlikely allies, including a Jewish housewife from New York who becomes both his conscience and co-conspirator. Set against the backdrop of a fractured south, this novel is part coming-of-age, part cautionary tale, and part tribute to the quiet power of standing up when the truth is under siege. With biting humor, sharp insight, and deep empathy, New Roads to Old Places asks what it means to do the right thing--especially, when the world around you says to look the other way.