Freedom Summer

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

This stirring account of the "Freedom Summer" that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 powerfully and poignantly captures two boys' experience with racism and their friendship that defies it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Set in Mississippi during the summer of 1964, Wiles's affecting debut children's book about two boys--one white and the other African-American--underscores the bittersweet aftermath of the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Rather than opening public pools, roller rinks and shops to African-Americans, many towns and private owners boarded up the doors. Wiles delivers her message incisively through the credible voices of her young characters, narrator Joe and his best friend, John Henry, whose mother works as housekeeper for Joe's family. Joe and John spend many hours swimming together in the creek because John is not allowed in the public pool, so on the day the Civil Rights Act is enacted, they visit the town pool together, excited about diving for nickels in the clear water. Instead they find a work crew--including John Henry's older brother--filling in the pool with asphalt. "John Henry's voice shakes. `White folks don't want colored folks in their pool.' " The tale ends on an upbeat if tenuous note, as the boys walk together through the front door of a once-segregated shop to buy ice pops. Lagarrigue's (My Man Blue) softly focused, impressionistic paintings capture the lazy feel of summer days and affirm the bond between the two boys. The artist's close-up portraits of the boys' faces, as well as the body language of other characters, reinforce the narrative's powerful emotional pitch. Ages 4-8. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

The turmoil in the southern United States that followed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is made more understandable to youngsters today through the relationship depicted here between two friends, one black and one white. Our young white narrator shares wonderful times with John Henry, son of his mother's household helper. But there are places they cannot go together. When they hear about the new law, they eagerly look forward to swimming together in the previously restricted city pool, but are shocked to find it being filled with tar rather than allowing blacks to use it. The unfairness of all the restrictions overwhelms the friends. At the end, they decide to defy one tradition and buy and eat an ice pop together. We wonder whether they ever make it. Lagarrigue's vision, his visual narrative, is unfolded in a sequence of impressions. These textured pictures are generated from the vital energy of the two protagonists. There's just enough detail to set the stage for the melodramatic events. The scenes exude the joy of the friends, their puzzlement and finally, their joint defiance. In the final scene they march together through a dark doorway, a metaphor for those all must still pass through. The author fills in more factual background, adding that it is fiction but "based on real events" and feelings she can recall from her Alabama childhood. 2001, An Anne Schwartz Book/Atheneum Books for Young Readers, $16.00. Ages 4 to 8. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

Kirkus Reviews

Wiles draws on memories of her childhood summers in Mississippi in her first picture book, a slice-of-life story about Joe, a Caucasian boy, and his best friend, John Henry, an African-American boy whose mother works as a housekeeper for Joe's family. The setting is the Deep South in the summer of 1964, the period called Freedom Summer for its wide-ranging social changes following passage of the Civil Rights Act. Joe and John Henry have spent all their summers together, working around the rampant prejudice of the era and maintaining their friendship even though they can't swim in the public pool together or walk into the local store to buy a pair of ice pops. When the new law takes effect, the boys race together to the public pool only to find it being filled in with asphalt by city workers. John Henry's hurt and shame ring true in the text, but Joe's precocious understanding of the situation outstrips his age. ("I want to see this town with John Henry's eyes.") An author's note at the beginning of the book describes her experiences and the atmosphere in her own hometown during this era, when some white business owners preferred to close down rather than open their doors to African-Americans. Younger children will need this background explanation to understand the story's underlying layers of meaning, or the filling-in of the swimming pool will seem like a mindless bureaucratic blunder rather than concrete prejudice in action. Teachers and parents could use this book as a quiet but powerful introduction to the prejudice experienced by many Americans, and of course the book is a natural to pair with the story of another, more-famous John Henry. Vibrant full-page paintings bytalentedFrench-born artist Lagarrigue capture both the palpable heat of southern summer days and the warmth of the boys' friendship. (Picture book. 6-12)