Reading Guide for
A SUMMER OF KINGS
by Han Nolan
PRAISE FOR A SUMMER OF KINGS
★“The brilliantly portrayed cast of characters
illuminates the gut-wrenching history of the
time, making tangible the sorrow and hurt that
is always personal.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Guide
A Summer of Kings is appropriate for readers ages twelve
to eighteen or in grades seven through twelve.
This guide was created for use in the classroom or with
smaller reading groups. It contains a variety of activities and
questions that address comprehension and prompt readers
to draw conclusions, to speculate, to make connections, and
to “dig deeper” into the story. The questions can be adapted
into writing prompts. The page numbers in the guide refer
to the hardcover edition of the book.
About the Book
National Book Award–winning author Han Nolan
offers readers a poignant, powerful coming-of-age story
set in Westchester County, New York, during the turbu-
lent period of America’s civil rights movement. The year is
1963, and fourteen-year-old Esther Young is “in great
need of a new adventure.” Feeling like an outcast among
her family and peers, Esther is determined to get the
attention she craves by initiating a summer romance with
King-Roy Johnson, an eighteen-year-old black teen who
comes to live with her family after he is accused of
murdering a white man in Alabama. King-Roy is an angry
young man who feels betrayed by the nonviolent teachings
of Martin Luther King Jr. His anger and frustration are
fueled by a follower of Malcolm X, who advocates black
revolution. Esther and King-Roy help each other battle
personal demons and discover things about themselves
that transform their lives.
 Prereading Activities
There are many references in the story to civil rights movement
events and leaders. Ask the students to research the following:
Martin Luther King Jr., Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, the
March on Washington, and the Nation of Islam.
Reading and Understanding This Book
Why does Esther feel “in great need of a new adventure”?
(p. 3)
How does Pip feel about Esther? How does Esther feel about
him? (p. 4)
What do Kathy and Laura have to do with Esther’s obsession
with King-Roy? (p. 7)
How does Esther feel about herself in comparison to her
siblings? (p. 25)
Why does Esther think King-Roy is “the luckiest boy on
Earth”? (p. 27)
Is Auntie Pie’s reaction to King-Roy reasonable? Why or why
not? (p. 31)
Why is Esther scared of the name Malcolm X? (p. 34)
Why does Esther’s mother give her such a hard time? (p. 52)
Esther accuses Auntie Pie of being prejudiced. Do you agree?
Why or why not? (p. 58)
Why does King-Roy believe he needs a gun? (p. 71)
What does King-Roy say to Esther about the “white devil”?
Who introduced him to these ideas? (p. 74)
What does Esther think of Monsieur Vichy? (p. 81)
What does Esther overhear her father and Monsieur Vichy
discussing in the kitchen? How does it make her feel?
(pp. 84–85)
What are the three things King-Roy says he will never do for a
living? What are his reasons? (p. 100)
Why does King-Roy refuse to tap dance for Esther? (p. 106)
What does King-Roy tell Esther and Pip about his younger
siblings? Why is King-Roy so angry? (pp. 112–17)
Why does Esther not want the part in the play that she is
offered? (pp. 139–40)
Esther feels guilty for being afraid of the man in the gold suit
in Harlem because she believes her thinking is prejudiced.
Do you agree that she is being prejudiced? Why or why not?
(p. 152)
What does Esther realize when she listens to the speaker at the
Harlem rally? (pp. 160–61)
Why has King-Roy given up on nonviolence? (pp. 215–17 and
224–25)
Why is King-Roy so angry when he returns from Harlem the
third time? (pp. 241–42)
What does King-Roy mean when he tells Esther they can never
be “real friends”? (p. 245)
What does Esther mean when she sees Kathy and Laura in the
girls’ room and asks herself, “When did I get so old?”? (p. 334)
What is ironic about King-Roy’s death?
How does Esther’s view of Pip change over the course of the story?
In what ways does Esther change over the course of the story?
Further Activities
• Esther’s mother will not allow her to listen to the Beach Boys
because she says they are too loud and hedonistic. Play a recording
of “Surfin’ USA” for your class and ask the students what they
think of it. Do their parents react to their music the same way
Esther’s mother reacts to Esther’s music? Which songs do their
parents dislike? Why don’t their parents like the music?
• Esther feels like the world is passing her by. Ask the students
to write about a time in their life when they have felt like Esther.
Instruct them to include details such as national or world events,
what their family was doing, trends in pop culture, or scientific
discoveries.
• When Esther begins learning about the civil rights movement,
she discovers that the nonviolent philosophy advocated by
Martin Luther King Jr. is based on the teachings of Mahatma
Gandhi. Ask the students to research Gandhi, his accom-
plishments, and the principles of his nonviolent teachings.
• Esther and King-Roy do not share the same view, but both
want the same outcome: equality. Ask the students to write an
essay comparing and contrasting Esther and King-Roy’s views
using direct quotes and supporting facts from the book. Have
students write about which method they would have followed if
they had been part of the civil rights era, and why.
Additional Resources
Reading A Summer of Kings is an excellent opportunity to
introduce students to the history of the civil rights movement.
The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama,
offers noteworthy resources to teachers free of charge through
its Teaching Tolerance project. A free kit called America’s Civil
Rights Movement is available. The kit contains the documentary
A Time for Justice, which addresses the events and issues depicted
in the novel; a companion book, Free at Last; and a teacher’s
guide with lesson plans. The kit can be ordered at the website
www.teachingtolerance.org.
 An Interview with Han Nolan
What inspired you to write this novel?
It’s hard to think back and figure out what the original impetus
was for writing this story. I tend to carry ideas and characters and
bits of this and that around in my head for years before they finally
find a place in my stories. I’ve always wanted to write about this
big old house my family lived in for three years from 1963 to
1965. I was only seven years old in 1963, but several things left an
impression on me about those days in that house. First, there was
just the fun of living in such an amazing building—a house with
this really cool ballroom in it. The other thing that left an
impression on me was all the people who came and stayed at the
house: young, old, white, black, wealthy, poor, church groups,
teachers, students. My parents have always been that way, including
everyone they know in what they’re doing and inviting them into
their homes, but this was a time when I first really became aware
of it and realized everyone didn’t live like that. I thought it was
great. I felt special having all these people in my life. As for the
civil rights aspects of the story, that’s something I’ve been
researching and wanting to write about for about eight years. I’ve
been interested in human rights, including the civil rights
movement, just about all my life. I think again that stems from my
parents’ generous and inclusive attitude toward people.
What was your greatest challenge in writing this novel?
There were quite a few challenges for me with this novel. As I
said, I’ve been trying to write this story for years, but I never quite
had the right characters and I could never find the right “entrance”
into the story until now. It wasn’t until I set the story in the New
York town where I grew up that the whole thing started to come
together. Up to that point, I had been trying to write the story
set in the South, but I finally realized that wasn’t where the story
needed to take place.
Another problem was that until I got about halfway through
the book, I didn’t really know what Esther’s problem was. I didn’t
know her true reason for being—for existing—and because of
that, King-Roy’s character kept threatening to take over the story.
I wondered if I needed to tell this story through King-Roy’s eyes.
Then, while I was in Maine for two weeks up to my eyeballs in
snow and shivering in a house without heat, it came to me. I knew
who Esther really was and why she was telling this story: She felt
she was being left behind. The reason had been there all along; I
just couldn’t see it. That’s when I knew this had to be Esther’s
story. That’s when she really came alive for me.
Yet another problem for me was the length of the story. It took
me eighty-six pages just to get through the first day, and I knew I
still had a whole summer to write about. I felt I could have written
eighty-six pages for every day of that summer, so obviously I had
to really rein it in to keep the story a manageable length.
A Summer of Kings is set during a tumultuous period in American
history and obviously the lives of Esther and King-Roy are deeply
touched by these historical events, but would you characterize the book
as a historical novel?
Yes and no. I’d hate to think of any period of time I’ve lived
through as being historical—that makes me feel so old—but it
is set in the past, and it does touch on some historical events and
in as truthful and as authentic a way as I could possibly make it,
so in that sense it’s a historical novel. However, I really tried to
focus on two young people from two different worlds and how
their lives come together for this brief time. For me it’s always
about the people: the characters and their lives and their feelings
and interactions with others.
You were a child during the civil rights movement. Are there any
particular events from that time that left a strong impression upon you?
As I said, I was only seven in 1963 and to tell you the truth, at
that time I was completely oblivious to the civil rights movement.
I remember we had a young black boy staying with us for a while
back then. I didn’t know why he was there. I just thought he was
a playmate my parents had invited to stay with us. I only found
out this year from my older sister that his visit was part of a
program to bring city children out to the “country.” I just thought
he was the child of one of my parent’s friends. So, when I wrote
this story, I wanted to include some of that innocence and
ignorance about the movement and those times in Esther and
some of the other characters.
What sort of research did you have to do get the historical aspects of the
story right?
Like most writers I did a ton of research. Every day before,
during, and after writing this story, I was doing some kind of
research. I wanted to get every detail right, down to the type of
trees that line the mall in Washington, D.C., so that when Esther
and Pip climb up in the tree, I could name it. I read everything
I could get my hands on, redid the research I had done years
before when I first started to work on this book, and I listened
to tapes and watched videos of both Martin Luther King Jr.’s
and Malcolm X’s speeches. I did not rely on my memories for
the details, but I do feel that my memories helped me bring the
right feel to the story.
come to writing myself into a story. She has the same spirit and
energy that I had, but still, she is not me.
In the course of the summer, Esther is transformed in so many ways.
Was there a specific period in your own adolescence when you
experienced so much dramatic change?

All of the characters in the novel are vivid and memorable. Are any of
them based upon people you know or have known?
When I was young and before we moved to the house in this
story, we lived in a close-knit New York neighborhood that
happened to be full of well-known actors and home to a singer,
a director, a public television producer, and a journalist, so I
drew on this, placing some of them in the house instead of a
neighborhood. But the people in my story do not have the same
personalities as the people in that neighborhood, and Esther’s
brother and sister and parents, I’m happy to say, are nothing like
my own family. Esther, on the other hand, is the closest I’ve ever
I wasn’t a teenager yet, but yes. I hated school when I was
young, and I felt really sick every time I had to go. I ended up
missing so much school one year that I had to repeat the year to
make up the work. That really woke me up! I was in the fifth
grade. Until then I don’t think I had a real sense of myself and
how my actions could affect my life. That event turned my life
around. I became a different person; more conscious of my
actions, more aware of my surroundings, and more in tune with
school and the teachers and learning what it took to become the
kind of person and student I wanted to be. I’m grateful I learned
that lesson as young as I did. I’m sure I drew on this experience
to write about Esther’s awakening.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Han Nolan is the author of the National Book Award winner Dancing on the Edge,
the National Book Award finalist Send Me Down a Miracle, Born Blue,
and several other acclaimed novels. She and her husband live in the South.

A Summer of Kings
0-15-205108-2
Hardcover $17.00

About the author of the guide: Edward T. Sullivan is a librarian and author in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is the
author of many articles, books, and reviews about children’s and young adult literature.

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