Goin' Someplace Special

Confronted with the indignities and humiliations of segregated Nashville in the 1950s, young 'Tricia Ann holds her head high and remembers that she is "somebody, a human being--no better, no worse than anybody else in this world." For the first time, 'Tricia Ann has been allowed to venture outside her community all by herself. Her grandmother has prepared her well, fortifying her "with enough love, respect, and pride to overcome any situation." 'Tricia Ann, though frustrated by the Jim Crow laws that forbid her, as an African American, to enter certain restaurants and hotels, or even to sit on park benches marked "For Whites Only," rises above her pain and makes her way to one of the only places in the city that welcomes her with open arms: the public library.

Drawing on her own Nashville childhood, Newbery Honor-winning author Patricia C. McKissack (The Dark- Thirty) brings the injustices of segregation to life in this bittersweet picture book. Illustrator Jerry Pinkney, four-time Coretta Scott King Award winner and four-time Caldecott Honor Medalist, captures the spirit of the '50s with his lovely watercolors. McKissack and Pinkney previously collaborated on Mirandy and Brother Wind. (Ages 3 to 7) --Emilie Coulter