IN MY PLACE by Charlayne Hunter-Gault...

IN MY PLACE by Charlayne Hunter-Gault (Vintage: $11; 257 pp., illustrated). In this warm memoir, the national correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour recalls growing up within a loving, racially mixed family in the rural and urban south--with forays to New York City and Alaska. But her upbeat tone darkens when she describes how she and a high school friend became the first black students to challenge segregation at the venerable University of Georgia. Hunter-Gault’s accounts of the good and evil she found in a divided society take on added significance as American schools grow more segregated through economic and demographic shifts.