Stella's Star Sentinel is the newspaper that aspiring Stella creates. She loves expressing herself via words, and she longs to be a successful newspaper reporter some day. She uses her new typewriter to record her stories... any she has many. The KKK is in town, and they have set fire to the Spencers' house. They have over a dozen kids, and local residents rush to help—African American and white alike. She reports the story.

Stella, her brother, Jojo, and her parents struggle to survive in the segregated southern United States in the 1920s. Some of the white folks get along with blacks, but not all of them. Stella enjoys speaking with Paulette, whose father is in the Klan. A sign hangs over Dr. Packard's office that announces: White Patients Only. Dr. Packard refuses to treat black people in distress, even if they might die. 

This is the era of the Depression when many people are suffering... black and white. However, black people suffer startling abuse at the hands of some whites, unfortunately. And there are the Jim Crow laws.

Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper, 2015

I like the cover art, which features Stella and Jojo observing a burning cross in the nighttime. It is very illustrative of the narrative. 

• Books about racial segregation
• Sharon Draper's web site