Stuff
Product Details
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, January 2001
Hardcover, 32 pages
ISBN-10: 0689830165
ISBN-13: 9780689830167
Grades: P - 3
Awards and Nominations
- Children's Literature Choice List
- Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award
- Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award
- Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award
See all
Description
John Henry swims better than anyone I know.
He crawls like a catfish,
blows bubbles like a swamp monster,
but he doesn't swim in the town pool with me.
He's not allowed.
Joe and John Henry are a lot alike. They both like shooting marbles, they both want to be firemen, and they both love to swim. But there's one important way they're different: Joe is white and John Henry is black, and in the South in 1964, that means John Henry isn't allowed to do everything his best friend is. Then a law is passed that forbids segregation and opens the town pool to everyone. Joe and John Henry are so excited they race each other there...only to discover that it takes more than a new law to change people's hearts.
Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Teachers and parents could use this book as a quiet but powerful introduction
to the prejudice experienced by many Americans.
Library Talk, starred review
An excellent book...History will come alive for present-day students.
