Richard Wright and the Library Card

Richard Wright, African American author of Black Boy and Native Son, grew up in the segregated South of the 1920s. His formal education ended after he completed the ninth grade, but gaining access to the public library with the help of a white coworker opened up a new world of books for him, eventually inspiring him to become a writer. Richard Wright and the Library Card is a fictionalized account of this powerful story, deftly adapted by William Miller from a scene in Black Boy.

Miller--a professor of African American literature and author of the critically acclaimed Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery, A House by the River, and Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree-- masterfully builds suspense, as readers wonder how the young African American will quench his thirst for books without being busted by the local white librarian. Wright's story is perfectly complemented by the work of Gregory Christie, winner of the 1997 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award for Palm of My Heart. (Ages 5 to 9)